Gristmill

Politicos, Pickens hype summit in D.C. next week

Three of the political leaders who will help determine the future of U.S. energy policy — and two guys who clearly want to influence it — spoke to reporters Wednesday in advance of a major energy summit in Washington, D.C., next week where each will speak. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Secretary of Energy […]

Wow

Now CEI is going to bat for the bottled water industry. Is there any malignant industry these guys won't shill for?

"Billions of tons of wasted, useless plastic and transportation emissions: they call it pollution. We call it life."

L.A. Times: ‘Hydrogen fuel-cell technology won’t work in cars’

"Honda's striking, amazing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle may be the most expensive, advanced and impractical car ever built."

So writes Dan Neil, the L. A. Times car guy in "Honda FCX Clarity: Beauty for beauty's sake" (see here, vehicle details here).

You will never buy a hydrogen car. And I say that mostly because I know that in the unlikely event a major car company actually ever tries to sell you one, you are just way too smart to bite or even nibble. And I say that not because you read ClimateProgress, but because you are breathing at all. Hydrogen cars are simply too impractical.

It is time for President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu to drastically scale back the federal hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle program, to a small basic research program focused on long-term breakthroughs in hydrogen storage, fuel cells, and renewable hydrogen. This could free up some $1 billion in Obama's first term alone for more important R&D and more urgent deployment efforts (see here).

The hydrogen emperor has no clothes. This isn't news overseas (see here). Nor is it news that the Honda FCX is a lemon, tangible proof of the futility of pursuing the commercialization of hydrogen cars (see here).

But it is a big deal to see the car guy of the L.A. Times -- in the home state of many of the last remaining hydrogen diehards, the state that had until recently seriously entertained building a "hydrogen highway" -- dismantle the vehicle in his review, so I'll reprint it below:

James Hansen wants you to join in civil disobedience at the U.S. Capitol coal-fired power plant

Some 10,000 young people will be descending on Washington, D.C., from Feb. 27 to March 2 for the Power Shift 2009 conference, where they’ll be organizing to put pressure on political leaders to take action on climate change. On the last day of the event, they’re the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, the Rainforest Action Network […]

What's up with the Department of Treasury's Office of Environment and Energy?

Am I the only one who had no idea the Treasury Department started an Office of Environment and Energy? Apparently it happened late summer of last year. The office was created by Hank Paulson to ...

... develop, coordinate, and execute the Treasury Department's role in the domestic and international environment and energy agenda of the United States. Among other things, the office will oversee international financial mechanisms to support U.S. and global environmental goals, such as the multi-billion dollar Clean Technology Fund established in July, the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, and the Global Environmental Facility, as well as contribute to the development of domestic and international policy options to address climate change.

There's weirdly little info out there about what exactly the office is and what it will do under Geithner's leadership. The Treasury website says nothing about it.

AAAS: Climate change is coming much harder, much faster than predicted

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is holding its annual meeting, so you can expect a flurry of climate announcements -- though not as much as at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (see here and here). The Washington Post and AFP are reporting:

It seems the dire warnings about the oncoming devastation wrought by global warming were not dire enough, a top climate scientist warned Saturday.

Okay, this is what I've been saying for a few years now, but it's good to hear more and more leading climate scientists besides James Hansen and John Holdren being blunt with the public on this (see links below for others who are now telling it like it is). In this case, it's Christopher Field, founding director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, who said

We are basically looking now at a future climate that's beyond anything we've considered seriously in climate model simulations.

The source of Field's concern -- what else could it be but our old nemesis, amplifying carbon cycle feedbacks:

What does economic 'recovery' mean on an extreme weather planet?

This is a guest essay by Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and an editor of the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. Englehardt is also the author of The End of Victory Culture and the editor of The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire. This post was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom's kind permission.

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It turns out that you don't want to be a former city dweller in rural parts of southernmost Australia, a stalk of wheat in China or Iraq, a soybean in Argentina, an almond or grape in northern California, a cow in Texas, or almost anything in parts of east Africa right now. Let me explain.

As anyone who has turned on the prime-time TV news these last weeks knows, southeastern Australia has been burning up. It's already dry climate has been growing ever hotter. "The great drying," Australian environmental scientist Tim Flannery calls it. At its epicenter, Melbourne recorded its hottest day ever this month at a sweltering 115.5 degrees, while temperatures soared even higher in the surrounding countryside. After more than a decade of drought, followed by the lowest rainfall on record, the eucalyptus forests are now burning. To be exact, they are now pouring vast quantities of stored carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas considered largely responsible for global warming, into the atmosphere.

In fact, everything's been burning there. Huge sheets of flame, possibly aided and abetted by arsonists, tore through whole towns. More than 180 people are dead and thousands homeless. Flannery, who has written eloquently about global warming, drove through the fire belt, and reported:

The case for small-scale fishing communities

Over on the Foreign Policy website, Daniel Pauly of The Sea Around Us Project has an excellent set of info graphics on the dismal state of the globe's fisheries. 

The whole thing should be studied and gaped at by anyone who values the oceans as living ecosystems. You should know, for example, if you don't already, that the world's appetite for sushi has driven three species of bluefin tuna to "near extinction," and that it will take decades to revive them -- if and only if we "stop eating them now."

But what really reeled me in (sorry, everyone) was the comparison between small-scale and large-scale fishing operations. Turns out that small operations are actually much more efficient. Key fact:

WaPo lets Will off, lectures Boxer on climate change

The Washington Post editorial board, which just this weekend elected to run a column from George Will denying climate change entirely, now presumes to lecture Barbara Boxer on how to solve it.

It's amazing how long people like this have ruled our national discourse.