Climate Climate & Energy

More Poles to Worry About

Global warming makes skiing World Cup circuit hit the skids Global warming is wreaking mountains of havoc on skiing’s World Cup circuit, with stops canceled due to weirdly warm temps at European resorts. Cross-country teams are all training in one place in Italy, unable to find snow elsewhere in central Europe; the only cross-country race […]

Besieged by natural-gas exploration, a Wyoming town draws the line

On a summer weekend in the high country, I talked my grandmother into taking a drive into the Wyoming Range, where she’d worked with my grandfather as a hunting guide more than 20 years earlier. We wanted to have a look at a certain 44,600 acres of forest that had been leased by companies in […]

It’s also the road to ‘energy security’

A few times now John has made a point I have made in the past and now shall make again (how's that for a self-referential intro?). To wit:

"Energy security" is a lopsided way of framing our energy problem, and left un-balanced, will do more harm than good.

Why? Because the shortest, cheapest route to energy security (or "independence," if you like) is through coal, and coal is ... wait for it ... the enemy of the human race. This is not just true for China and the U.S.; Germany, Britain, and even France are planning a slew of new coal plants.

For more on this crucial point, see this fantastic post from Jerome a Paris.

An interview with Travis Bradford, author of Solar Revolution

Solar power has been the Next Big Thing for decades now, yet it remains a niche player in the energy world. The problem of intermittency is unsolved, up-front capital costs remain high, and surging demand for polysilicon, a key component of solar panels, has recently outstripped supply, stifling production. Travis Bradford. So when someone claims […]

Know it

There's a great op-ed in the NYT today making the argument that, however much Malthus and his heirs have fallen out of favor, they may have the last laugh. Limits are back, baby!

Here are two memes I'm happy to see getting out into the mainstream:

1. In the words of a recent interviewee (watch for it tomorrow): Coal is the enemy of the human race.
2. This, from the last paragraph:

   ... we really need to start thinking hard about how our societies -- especially those that are already very rich -- can maintain their social and political stability, and satisfy the aspirations of their citizens, when we can no longer count on endless economic growth.

   Yup.

One way or the other, we’re waiting for the next administration

If the Supreme Court rules that CO2 does not have to be regulated, it will give the present administration cover to do nothing for two more years. However, most serious candidates for president support action to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, so regardless, I suspect you'll see action in the next administration.

If the Supreme Court rules that CO2 can be regulated, the administration will ... do nothing for two more years. But again, the next president will likely take some action.

If the Supreme Court rules that CO2 must be regulated, the administration will drag its feet and ... end up doing nothing for two more years. But again, the next president will likely take some action.

Thus, regardless of what the court rules, we will have to wait for '09 to see any action on emissions reductions -- but we'll see action then regardless of what the court rules.

It’s likely not the primary cause

In climate change debates, one hears a lot about the Sun. A favorite argument of those opposed to action is that the warming we're presently experiencing is due to increases in solar output, also known as solar brightening, and not from greenhouse gases.

Before critiquing this argument, first remember what the IPCC says about human contribution to climate change:

There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.

Note that the IPCC says most of the recent warming is due to human activities. This leaves as much as 50% of the recent warming not attributed to humans.

It is certainly possible -- and fully consistent with the IPCC -- for solar to have contributed some part of the warming we are experiencing.

The real question is whether solar brightening could be the dominant cause of the recent warming, with humans playing a minor role. That is unlikely, for the following reasons:

‘They predicted global cooling in the 70s’–But that didn’t even remotely resemble today’s consensus

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

Objection: The alarmists were predicting the onset of an ice age in the '70s. Now it's too much warming! Why should we believe them this time?

Answer: It is true that there were some predictions of an "imminent ice age" in the 1970s, but a cursory comparison of those warnings and today's reveals a huge difference.

Understanding what is happening right under our noses does not require paleoclimate perfection

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

Objection: Climate science can't even fully explain why the climate did what it did in the past. How can they claim to know what is going on today?

Answer: There are two requirements for understanding what happened at a particular point of climate change in geological history. One is an internally consistent theory based on physical principles; the other is sufficient data to determine the physical properties involved.

Report spells out high economic costs of climate chaos

Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.

While the U.S. was absorbed in the midterm elections, a major report on the economics of climate change was launched in the U.K. The weighty "Stern Review" -- 700 pages in all -- was the work of Sir Nicholas Stern, ex-chief economist at the World Bank. Produced at the behest of the chancellor, Gordon Brown, it has had a profound impact on political and business attitudes in this country.

This is not surprising when the headline message of the report is that climate change could shrink the global economy by a fifth, equivalent to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Stern's analysis shows that taking action now will cost an average of 1 percent of global GDP a year over the coming decades, whilst not acting will cost between 5 and 20 percent of GDP a year over the same time frame.