Obama’s first 100 days of coal

“If you’re going to lead my country,If you’re gonna say it’s freeI’m gonna needa little honestyJust a few honest words”...

There is no negative feedback in the climate system

The small number of credible skeptics out there (e.g., Spencer, Lindzen) have spent much of the last decade searching for a negative feedback in our climate system. If a sufficiently big one is found, then it would suggest that warming over the next century may well be small.

Most climate scientists, however, are reasonably certain that a negative feedback big enough to overwhelm the well-known positive feedbacks in the climate system, such as the water vapor feedback [PDF], does not exist. Why?

Negative feedbacks tend to dampen out climate change. If you add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere or the sun brightens, then the hypothetical negative feedback will counteract the warming, leaving the climate nearly unchanged. While it may be comforting to believe that a negative feedback exists, it is extremely difficult to reconcile the existence of a big negative feedback with our past observations of climate variability.

For example, the ice ages rely on a carbon dioxide feedback to provide their large amplitude. If there were a big negative feedback in the system, then how do you explain the large swings in to and out of ice ages? No way that I know of.

Similarly, the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum is also thought to be the result of a huge release of greenhouse gases. With a large negative feedback in the system, how do you explain the rapid temperature rise during that event?

Half of world's population could face climate-driven food crisis by 2100

"Ignoring climate projections at this stage will only result in the worst form of triage."

The headline is from the University of Washington news release on a study in Science, "Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat" ($ub. req'd). The quote is the study's powerful final sentence. The release explains:

Rapidly warming climate is likely to seriously alter crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century and, without adaptation, will leave half the world's population facing serious food shortages, new research shows ...

"The stresses on global food production from temperature alone are going to be huge, and that doesn't take into account water supplies stressed by the higher temperatures," said David Battisti, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor.

Worse, the study must also be considered a serious underestimate of likely impacts since, as is common in such analyses, they based their simulations on "the 'middle of the road' emission scenario, A1B." In 2100, A1B hits about 700 ppm with average global temperatures "only" about 3°C warmer than today. In fact, on our current emissions path, we are going to get much, much hotter.

Figure. "Histogram of summer (June, July, and August) averaged temperatures (blue) observed from 1900 to 2006 and (red) projected for 2090 for (A) France, (B) Ukraine, and (C) the Sahel. Temperature is plotted as the departure from the long-term (1900-2006) climatological mean (21). The data are normalized to represent 100 seasons in each histogram. In (A), for example, the hottest summer on record in France (2003) is 3.6°C above the long-term climatology. The average summer temperature in 2090 [assuming A1B] is projected to be 3.7°C greater than the long-term climatological average."

The results are still alarming:

On the importance of getting personal with your food

Real food doesn't often compete with the delicious paper-and-ink smell of bookstores, but last Saturday, chefs, farmers, photographers, and writers filled Seattle's Elliott Bay Book Company with their wares: two appetizing reads. The back-to-back book events featured the authors of Chefs on the Farm and Edges of Bounty.

One lesson I walked away with that day was that food is only as good as the relationships on which it's based. These relationships can be between soil and seed, eater and herb, farmer and goat, or even you and your neighbors. Both books' authors reinforced this idea and went on to suggest that diverse, well-tended, and personal relationships produce the best meals and the best stories.

Will Congress get a whiff and vote to clean up dirty diesel engines?

The Washington Post has an interesting note about the armada of diesel buses that have rolled into the nation's capital for the Obama inauguration -- and the need to clean them up.

The opportunity for the "policy change" described in the piece could be at hand as soon as the day after the inauguration, Wednesday, Jan. 21, when the House Appropriations Committee takes up the economic recovery bill. The committee already recognized the desire to include the cleanup of existing diesel engines as part of the stimulus bill. See the bottom of page 4 of the House plan [PDF], which includes $300 million for a diesel green jobs program.

Chevron's history of denial, delay, and defamation in the Ecuadorian Amazon

It has been 15 years since a group of Ecuadorian indigenous people filed a lawsuit against Texaco for oil contamination, resulting from 26 years of substandard oil extraction efforts. In those years, Texaco -- acquired by Chevron in 2001 -- consistently has denied responsibility, delayed justice, and defamed the Ecuadorian people who need help the most. In other words, the oil giant has acted like most people expect Big Oil companies to act -- like bullies -- instead of the good corporate citizens that Chevron's advertising campaigns like to portray.

Meanwhile, the Ecuadorians living in Texaco's former dumping ground suffer every day. Texaco released over 18 billion gallons of oil and toxic water into the rainforest from 1964 to 1990. Experts indicate that over 1,000 people have died from cancer. Spontaneous abortions are two to three times more likely to occur in the concession area than in other parts of Ecuador. It's almost impossible to find a family not touched by the illnesses.

Until you see the extent of the contamination, it is hard to believe. Almost 1,000 pits the size of large swimming pools scar an area the size of Rhode Island. Texaco built the pits to dump the remaining oil and toxic water after drilling. To reduce costs, Texaco violated standard industry practice and never lined the pits. As a result, the toxins have flowed directly into the streams and underground water supply. Texaco eventually covered the pits with dirt -- as if hiding the pollution would make it go away -- but never took any real steps to clean up the area. Some people even built their houses on top of the covered pits, thinking that the pits were safe.

U.N. says ignore the cold, warming is still a problem

GENEVA — Icy conditions that have claimed dozens of lives across Europe since November are partly due to La Nina,...

Tennessee coal ash spill contains high levels of toxic heavy metals

According to some just-released test results, the coal ash at the Harriman sludge spill contains high levels of toxic heavy metals, some up to 300 times the legal limit:

According to the tests, arsenic levels from the Kingston power plant intake canal tested at close to 300 times the allowable amounts in drinking water, while a sample from two miles downstream still revealed arsenic at approximately 30 times the allowed limits. Lead was present at between twice to 21 times the legal drinking water limits, and thallium levels tested at three to four times the allowable amounts.

All water samples were found to contain elevated levels of arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel and thallium. The samples were taken from the immediate area of the coal waste spill, in front of the Kingston Fossil plant intake canal just downstream from the spill site, and at a power line crossing two miles downstream from the spill.

This comes via the Appalachian Voices blog, a great source of breaking info and pictures from the spill. Full release beneath the fold:

Canadian bishop challenges the 'moral legitimacy' of tar sands production

The Catholic bishop whose diocese extends over the tar sands has posted a scathing pastoral letter, "The Integrity of Creation and the Athabasca Oil Sands."

The letter by Bishop Luc Bouchard concludes, "even great financial gain does not justify serious harm to the environment," and "the present pace and scale of development in the Athabasca oil sands cannot be morally justified." Equally powerful is who the letter is addressed to:

The critical points made in this letter are not directed to the working people of Fort McMurray but to oil company executives in Calgary and Houston, to government leaders in Edmonton and Ottawa, and to the general public whose excessive consumerist lifestyle drives the demand for oil.

We have met the enemy and he is us!

Other than sticking with the euphemism "oil sands" (see "Canada tries to tar-sandbag Obama on climate" the remarkably detailed and heavily footnoted letter is a brilliant piece of work dissecting what has been called the "biggest global warming crime ever seen."

Bishop Bouchard notes that "The environmental liabilities that result from the various steps in this process are significant and include":

• Destruction of the boreal forest eco-system
• Potential damage to the Athabasca water shed
• The release of greenhouse gases
• Heavy consumption of natural gas
• The creation of toxic tailings ponds

He writes at length on all five, and concludes

Any one of the above destructive effects provokes moral concern, but it is when the damaging effects are all added together that the moral legitimacy of oil sands production is challenged.

Here is what he says specifically about greenhouse gases: