Climate Climate & Energy

Cleared up once and for all

The answer depends on the exact question you're asking. Here is my view of the scientific consensus on a range of questions:

1) Did global warming cause Katrina? Or Rita? Or any single storm?

As far as I know, there exists not a single peer-reviewed article that connects global warming with the increased ferocity of any single storm. The commonly used dice analogy provides a good explanation of why the case is so hard to make. Assume the weather is determined by rolling a six-sided die, with a six corresponding to a massive hurricane. Now assume that by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, we've loaded the die to make six come up twice as frequently.

Now, we roll the die once, and it comes up six. Did it come up six because it was loaded? After all, a normal die has a 16% chance of coming up six, so it's absolutely possible that the die would have come up six even without the loading.

So the answer to this question is "maybe, maybe not, we just don't know," and I think it's likely to stay that way.

The shining promise of ethanol doesn’t add up for farmers

No one can begrudge corn farmers their share of euphoria over the recent ethanol boom. Until very recently, their plight could be summed up by a bit of gallows humor I once heard from a dairy farmer: “I lose money on every gallon, so I try to make up for it on volume.” Hopes are […]

Offset and Running

U.K. goes offset-crazy, but how much is it helping the planet? Carbon offsets are all the rage in the U.K. these days — but are they a dangerous distraction from the need to slash greenhouse-gas emissions at the source, or simply a savvy strategy for efficiently addressing a global problem? Forum for the Future, a […]

It’s about risk

No, the lesson is not that Katrina was caused by or made worse by global warming. There is, at present, no evidence that Katrina was meteorological payback for our ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases.

Rather, the lesson of Katrina is about risk.

The possibility of a large hurricane wreaking havoc on the Louisiana coast has been known for years. Everything from infrastructure damage to long-term flooding of New Orleans to the enormous refugee problem was foreseen in excruciatingly accurate detail.

We also knew the things we could do to reduce the impact of a killer hurricane. We could shore up the levees, for example, or work to recover the disappearing wetlands and barrier islands that shield New Orleans from storms. But these were deemed "too expensive" and postponed. We rolled the dice.

Now, our country is going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild New Orleans and surrounding areas -- at least ten times more than the cost of mitigating the catastrophe in the first place.

What does this have to do with global warming?

Peter Madden ponders the upsides and downsides of CO2 offsetting

This is the second installment of a monthly column on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe, from Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, Britain's leading sustainable development charity. Read the first column here.

We have gone offset-crazy in the U.K. Open any newspaper or magazine at the moment and you'll see full-page advertisements from oil giant BP offering the chance to "neutralize the impact of your car's CO2 emissions."

Buy a new Range Rover, book a holiday with First Choice, or pay for a flight with British Airways and you are given the chance to offset. Even this year's World Cup declared itself "carbon neutral."

Government has got in on the act too, with a clutch of departments promising to offset their impacts.

For some environmentalists, though, this is all a dangerous distraction from the need to reduce emissions at source. Kevin Anderson, a climate-change scientist, argues, "Offsetting is a dangerous delaying tactic because it helps us to avoid tackling that task. It helps us to sleep well at night when we shouldn't sleep well at night."

Charles Liesenberg, an offset provider, argues the opposite: that because climate change is a global problem, "it doesn't matter where you reduce emissions, as long as you do it."

Pretty in Sink

Carbon trading market could help save rainforests Rainforests are worth far more intact, acting as carbon sinks, than if they’re cleared for farmland or pasture, the World Bank said yesterday, and therefore countries should be compensated for keeping trees standing. Enter: the global carbon market, where polluters must pay to offset excessive carbon dioxide emissions. […]

Humanity faces the fight of a lifetime against heavyweight climate change

Suppose you’d been invited to go into the ring with Muhammad Ali at his prime, for a 15-round bout. You’d almost certainly have said, “No thanks.” Climate change: down for the count. Photo: iStockphoto But what if you had no choice? Say someone had a gun to your head, and you’d be killed if you […]

What climate scientists have learned from Western wildfires

Many wildland firefighters carry an instrument called a sling psychrometer. It consists of two encased thermometers, and is swung above the head on a short rope — making the firefighters appear not unlike David readying to slay Goliath. The instrument gives a quick field reading of relative humidity, one of the most important factors in […]

Hot Air Act

Canadian Clean Air Act meets icy reception Canada’s newly proposed Clean Air Act — hyped as the centerpiece of the Conservative government’s green agenda — is getting booed right off the stage. The bill sets a far-out goal of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 45 to 65 percent by 2050, making no mention of the country’s commitment […]

How the legendary ski town is going green

Vail, Colo., is a town that’s defined by winter, when tourists from around the world descend on the area’s snow-covered slopes to ski, ride, and soak up the laid-back yet glitzy mountain lifestyle. But as the threat of global warming has begun to creep closer to the Colorado high country, Vail has been forced to […]