Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Climate Progress

Climate Progress


Exclusive: Caldeira calls the vision of Lomborg's Climate Consensus "a dystopic world out of a science fiction story"

Posted: 05 Sep 2009 08:19 AM PDT

dystopia

If you don't do aggressive greenhouse mitigation starting now, you pretty much take geo-engineering off the table as a very limited (but still dubious) add-on strategy.

The only upside I can see to all of the media coverage Bjorn Lomborg is getting for his do-nothing climate "consensus" is this one sentence by NYT reporter John Broder:

Critics in the environmental movement call him a "delayer" who believes that the problem will solve itself through the miracle of as-yet-unidentified science.

Apparently all of my critiques haven't gone for naught (see "The Bjorn Irrelevancy: Duke dean disses Danish delayer").  Well, ok, those critiques didn't stop Broder from writing an unjustifiably warm piece on the pro-warming man I called "the second most famous Danish delayer after Hamlet (see "Lomborg's main argument has collapsed").

Note to Broder:  I'm not in the "environmental movement" nor have I even been.  I'm in the "stop humanity's self-destruction movement," which isn't quite so easy to pigeonhole.  But I digress.

Juliet Eilperin had a much better piece in the Washington Post, which actually included a response from real climate scientists:

The group, headed by statistician Bjorn Lomborg, issued a report by five economists that suggested it made more sense to spend money on marine cloud whitening research and green energy development than to protect forests, clean up diesel emissions or significantly raise the price of carbon….

Several scientists questioned whether focusing on geoengineered solutions at the expense of major carbon reductions would adequately address the effects of climate change. Carnegie Institution senior scientist Ken Caldeira, a geoengineering expert, said such a strategy "misses the point."

"Geoengineering is not an alternative to carbon emissions reductions," he said. "If emissions keep going up and up, and you use geoengineering as a way to deal with it, it's pretty clear the endgame of that process is pretty ugly."

Brad Warren, who directs the ocean health program at the advocacy group Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, noted that even if marine cloud whitening worked, it would fail to address the fact that human-generated carbon emissions are making the seas more acidic and threatening marine life.

"I haven't seen anything in the area of geoengineering that protects the ocean from the chemical consequences of greenhouse gas emissions," Warren said.

The group's inane results are here, and I'll discuss the voodoo economics behind them later.  But the comment of Ken Caldeira caught my eye.  I've known him for many years and I asked him if he could explain his remarks.  His response (boldface added):

Nobody has written about this that I know of, but ….

If we keep emitting greenhouse gases with the intent of offsetting the global warming with ever increasing loadings of particles in the stratosphere, we will be heading to a planet with extremely high greenhouse gases and a thick stratospheric haze that we would need to main more-or-less indefinitely. This seems to be a dystopic world out of a science fiction story. First, we can assume the oceans have been heavily acidified with shellfish and corals largely a thing of the past. We can assume that ecosystems will be greatly affected by the high CO2 / low sunlight conditions — similar to what Earth experienced hundreds of millions years ago. The sunlight would likely be very diffuse — maybe good for portrait photography, but with unknown consequences for ecosystems.

We know also that CO2 and sunlight affect Earth's climate system in different ways. For the same amount of change in rainfall, CO2 affects temperature more than sunlight, so if we are to try to correct for changes in precipitation patterns, we will be left with some residual warming that would grow with time.

And what will this increasing loading of particles in the stratosphere do to the ozone layer and the other parts of Earth's climate system that we depend on?

On top of all of these environmental considerations, there are socio-political considerations: We we have a cooperative world government deciding exactly how much geoengineering to deploy where? What if China were to go into decades of drought? Would they sit idly by as the Climate Intervention Bureau apparently ignores their plight? And what if political instability where to mean that for a few years, the intervention system were not maintained … all of that accumulated pent-up climate change would be unleashed upon the Earth … and perhaps make "The Day After" movie look less silly than it does.

Long-term risk reduction depends on greenhouse gas emissions reduction. Nevertheless, there is a chance that some of these options might be able to diminish short-term risk in the event of a climate crisis.

I would add the grave risk that that after injecting massive amounts of sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere for a decade or more, we might discover some unexpected bad side effect that just gets worse and worse.  After all, the top climate scientists underestimated the speed and scale of greenhouse gas impacts (and the magnitude of synergistic ones, like bark beetle infestations and forest fires).

We would be in incompletely unexplored territory — what I call a experimental chemotherapy and radiation therapy combined.  There is no possible way of predicting the long-term effect of the thick stratospheric haze.  If it turned out to have unexpected catastrophic impacts of its own (other than drought), we'd be totally screwed.

No surprise, then, that science advisor John Holdren told me in April that he stands by his critique:

"The 'geo-engineering' approaches considered so far appear to be afflicted with some combination of high costs, low leverage, and a high likelihood of serious side effects."

Even geoengineering advocate Tom Wigley is only defending "a complementary combined mitigation/geoengineering scenario, an overshoot concentration pathway where atmospheric carbon dioxide reaches 530 ppm before falling back to 450 ppm, coupled with low-intensity geoengineering," with the goal of stabilizing global temperature rise at 2°C, in case we can't stabilize at 450 ppm. You can see a good discussion of that at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' expert roundtable response to Alan Robocks' excellent piece, "20 reasons why geoengineering may be a bad idea."

Well, stabilizing at 530 ppm requires doing a massive amount of mitigation starting now — only 2 or 3 fewer wedges than what is needed for 450 (see "How the world can (and will) stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm: The full global warming solution").

Ignore the delayers, already, status quo media.  The time for aggressive greenhouse gas reduction is now.

Related Post:

Van Jones seeks a "Healing for our Politics": "Let's be One Country" PLUS my response to Tapper's tweets — Should journalists twitter?

Posted: 04 Sep 2009 05:01 PM PDT

I am a big fan of green jobs czar clean energy jobs handyman Van Jones (see "Van Jones argues we can — and must — fight poverty and pollution at the same time" and "Must Read: Van Jones and the English Language").  The right wing hates the clean energy jobs message (see "Department of Energy eviscerates right-wing Spanish 'green jobs' study") so it's not surprising they are going after Van Jones.  This repost from Brad Johnson of Wonk Room helps sets the record straight.  It ends with a zinger tweet from ABC's Jake Tapper that I reply to.  I pose the question — should journalists twitter? — and would be interested in your comments.

White House green jobs advisor Van Jones is under attack from Fox News as an "avowed radical revolutionary communist" and from ABC News as a "truther" with a "history of incendiary and provocative remarks." In an attempt to assassinate the character of Van Jones, the right-wing media are distorting his past political activism and cherry-picking Jones's critiques of the pollution and injustice that still haunt this nation. However, Jones's true record is one of turning away from anger and finding hope, abandoning division and seeking consensus.

Speaking at the National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 in Las Vegas this August, Van Jones argued that "for all of the battleground politics that's going on," energy policy should be "the one place that should be a safe harbor for all of us." Van Jones praised the "bipartisanship" of Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who as a representative from Los Angeles succeeded in getting "the first president ever to sign into law a green jobs act, President George W. Bush." He recognized that the summit participants came to find a "healing for our politics" in a "common ground agenda":

Many of you have taken chances to start companies, you've written books, you've been grassroots champions for the change that we need. And I think you're seeking not just a healing for our economy or a healing for our planet, but a healing for our politics. And I want to acknowledge that many of us are here because we are seeking something deeper. This is the common ground agenda. It should be the common ground agenda. We should be able to come together as a country on this one. Finally.

Watch it:

Jones then explained that "the values that underlie this clean energy conversation" are "the common ground values of America." Underlying the call for clean energy is the value that "clean air is better than dirty air for the health of our children." Underlying the call for energy efficiency is that value that treating our country's resources "with wisdom and respect is more important than wasting them." And "if we have the opportunity to fight both poverty and pollution by putting people to work in these new industries, we would be wise as a country to do that."

To extended applause, Van Jones explained that the Obama administration has committed $5 billion to improving the energy efficiency of low-income households because the same investment "that cut unemployment and cut an energy bill and cuts greenhouse gases is also going to cut asthma, and take asthma inhalers out of little girls' and boys' pockets."

Jones discussed in further detail how President Obama's clean energy agenda tears down traditional ideological divides by "asking questions progressives like" but "giving answers that conservatives should like":

We're asking questions progressives like but we're giving answers that conservatives should like. We're asking questions about how to move the needle on poverty and pollution and how we create more economic opportunity especially for people in the lower part of our economy. But the answers are answers that conservatives should like. We're not talking about expanding welfare, we're talking about expanding work. We're not talking about expanding entitlements, we're talking about expanding enterprise and investments. We're not talking about redistributing existing wealth, we're talking about reinventing an existing sector, and creating new wealth by unleashing innovation and entrepeneurship. This should be common ground. We should be able to stand together and be one country on this.

Jones concluded by again making the call for us to "be one country" and connect "the people that most need work" to the "work that most needs to be done":

There is so much work that needs to be done in this country to retrofit America, to cut these energy bills. And there are so many people who need work. This is our opportunity as a country — and it comes around very rarely — to take the people that most need work, and connect them to the work that most needs to be done, to fight pollution and poverty at the same time, and be one country. Let's be one country.

During the applause at the conclusion of Jones's speech, prominent Republican oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens — who in 2004 funded the Swift Boat attacks on Sen. John Kerry — turned to Jones and shook his hand.

Transcript:

First of all, it's good to be here. I want to honor my friend and hero Vice President Gore. It was a brilliant summation, graceful, et cetera.

I also want to honor Senator Reid, who has been such a huge and steadfast champion on this. You haven't gotten the credit, so I'll put it on the table. Not only is Las Vegas going to be a leader in generating energy, but there's also going to be a $5.7 million smart grid demonstration project so we can use that energy better and smarter here. Congratulations on that. It's a big deal for the whole country. [APPLAUSE]

Senator Wirth and Senator Cantwell, I thank you also for your leadership and effectiveness on these very very important issues.

I also want to thank John Podesta. He sicced — this is a very tough set of problems — he sicced two of the best minds in the country on it, in Bracken Hendricks and in Benjamin Goldstein. This report, I think, is very challenging and visionary in pushing us to think even bigger and bolder. I thank you for that.

I also thank Secretary Chu for making energy efficiency cool again. We get a chance to quote you on that "fruit on the ground" thing four or five times a day. So thank you for saying it's the "fruit on the ground."

And also, I'm looking forward to hearing the comments of Secretary of may Labor Hilda Solis, the champion, which I think people sometimes forget, of the first ever federal legislation ever to codify the concept of green jobs, the Green Jobs Act. Not only she able to get it through Congress, she was able to get the first president ever to sign into law a green jobs act, President George W. Bush. So I give you credit for that, for being able to be a leader in bipartisanship and bringing us forward together. [APPLAUSE]

There's genius around this table.

There's also genius around this room. I want to acknowledge that there are so many people here who are listening who could easily come up here and talk, and teach us a great deal. I think that you are here, many of you — you wake up in the morning, this issue's the first thing on your mind. Many of you have taken chances to start companies, you've written books, you've been grassroots champions for the change that we need.

And I think you're seeking not just a healing for our economy or a healing for our planet, but a healing for our politics. And I want to acknowledge that many of us are here because we are seeking something deeper. This is the common ground agenda. It should be the common ground agenda. We should be able to come together as a country on this one. Finally. [APPLAUSE]

The reason for that is the values that underlie this clean energy conversation, which we don't speak to directly enough, are the common ground values of America. Clean air is better than dirty air for the health of our children. That's common ground. That's why we need clean energy.

We have been blessed in this country with so many resources. Conserving them, saving them, treating them with wisdom and respect is more important than wasting them. That's why energy efficiency is so important.

And if we have the opportunity to fight both poverty and pollution by putting people to work in these new industries, we would be wise as a country to do that. That is common ground. That is common ground.

And that is why this administration is so committed to energy efficiency. We think that this is the most fiscally conservative thing that we can do with the federal dollars.

Why do I say that?

I say that because the money that we invest in energy efficiency — these are humble, hard-working dollars. They work double time, triple time, quadruple time. If you take a worker, someone who right now needs work, someone who's sitting on the bench but has skills or the desire to learn skills, And you give that person an opportunity to stand up and to be an energy efficiency specialist and walk across the street, you put a dollar in that person's hand. That dollar just cut unemployment. But when she walks across the street and begins to blow in that clean, non-toxic insulation. When she begins to replace those windows and doors. When she begins to do the work of improving and upgrading our homes. That same dollar that cut unemployment is also going to cut somebody's home energy bill.

And it gets better.

That same dollar's also going to cut pollution. Somewhere there's often a coal-powered plant that's working overtime because our homes are so leaky and waste so much energy. But if we can cut that energy bill by 30 percent, we can cut that pollution by 30 percent. That cuts not just greenhouse gas emissions, that cuts asthma. That some dollar that cut unemployment and cut an energy bill and cuts greenhouse gases is also going to cut asthma, and take asthma inhalers out of little girls' and boys' pockets. That's the kind of double, triple, quadruple benefit that we're talking about. That's common ground. [APPLAUSE]

And I think it's important that we recognize that for all of the battleground politics that's going on, this is the one place that should be a safe harbor for all of us. We should be able to stand together.

We're asking questions progressives like but we're giving answers that conservatives should like. We're asking questions about how to move the needle on poverty and pollution and how we create more economic opportunity especially for people in the lower part of our economy. But the answers are answers that conservatives should like. We're not talking about expanding welfare, we're talking about expanding work. We're not talking about expanding entitlements, we're talking about expanding enterprise and investments. We're not talking about redistributing existing wealth, we're talking about reinventing an existing sector, and creating new wealth by unleashing innovation and entrepeneurship. This should be common ground. We should be able to stand together and be one country on this. And that's why the administration has been so committed.

That's why we have $5 billion on the table, up from 200 million last year in 2008. Five billion dollars on the table this year to cut energy bills for low-income people by unleashing a tidal wave of energy efficiency workers. That's why GSA has literally billions of dollars to retrofit our government buildings. That is why HUD has billions of dollars in our recovery package to cut energy costs for public housing. That is why you see with our Recovery Through Retrofit program –which the Vice President asked us to start — 12, 13 different agencies and departments standing together for the first time coming up with new ways forward. I mean Treasury. I mean Commerce. I mean the Small Business Administration. Because we know, as Secretary Chu has said so many times, because this is the fruit on the ground.

There is so much work that needs to be done in this country to retrofit America, to cut these energy bills. And there are so many people who need work. This is our opportunity as a country — and it comes around very rarely — to take the people that most need work, and connect them to the work that most needs to be done, to fight pollution and poverty at the same time, and be one country. Let's be one country. Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE]

Update:  Jake Tapper responds with snark (Friday p.m.): "Interesting editorial decision not to mention that by his own admission he signed a 9/11 Truther petition."
[The rest of this post is by CP editor, Joseph Romm.]
That was an odd tweet from Tapper.  And so is this one from this (Friday) morning:  "the potential problem for the WH: difficult to justify spending time and energy belittling 'birthers' while tolerating 'truthers' "

Why are those twoublesome tweets, to coin a phrase?  Thursday night, Tapper filed a story on Van Jones, which noted:

In a statement issued Thursday evening Jones said of "the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever."

He did not explain how his name came to be on the petition. An administration source said Jones says he did not carefully review the language in the petition before agreeing to add his name.*

…

UPDATE: It's worth pointing out that Ben Smith at Politico has spoken to two signatories of that petition, Rabbi Michael Lerner and historian Howard Zinn, who say they were misled about what they were signing. And the conservative website Little Green Footballs points out that Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of "Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It" has posted on her website, the American Center for Democracy: "PLEASE NOTE: Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is not a signatory of the 911Truth.org. She has asked several times to have her named removed from the list, but the organization failed to comply."

It would seem odd for Tapper to criticize Wonk Room for the "editorial decision not to mention that by his own admission he signed a 9/11 Truther petition."  That seems like a perfectly reasonable editorial decision given the news as Tapper himself reported it.

The other Tapper tweet strikes me as even more problematic.  Van Jones has disavowed the truther petition and apparently didn't know exactly what he was signing, which, again, Rabbi Lerner explains at length here is perfectly plausible.  The potential problem for Tapper:  The WH and other progressives are not attacking birthers who have disavowed their views or asserted they didn't fully understand what they were signing on to.  The simplistic analogy falls apart.  And that's the trouble with tweets.

Memo to Tapper and media on tweets:  Even more than blogging, twittering blurs the line between news reporting and just blurting out an opinion.  It eliminates all possibility of nuance and thus strikes me as it inappropriate for reporting/commenting on complex issues.  I think it is a very problematic activity for serious reporters and is more likely to undermine one's reputation for substantive journalism than to provide anything resembling "news" to the public.

Energy and Global Warming News for September 4: Coal with carbon capture and storage in China to face 'staggering' costs

Posted: 04 Sep 2009 03:41 PM PDT

Coal with carbon capture and storage is not cheap (see Harvard stunner: "Realistic" first-generation CCS costs a whopping $150 per ton of CO2 — 20 cents per kWh!).  Nor is it easy (see Harvard stunner: "Realistic" first-generation CCS costs a whopping $150 per ton of CO2 — 20 cents per kWh!)  The low-carbon, low-cost future for China is efficiency, wind and concentrated solar power, I think.

'Clean' Coal in China Said to Face 'Staggering' Costs

Western governments pushing China to use clean-coal technology may need to lower their expectations for the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases.

Costs will total as much as $400 billion over 30 years to install systems to capture carbon dioxide from power plant smokestacks in China and bury it underground, said Richard Morse, a Stanford University research associate and author of a study on the technology. China has little incentive to invest because it will raise power prices and it's unclear if wealthier nations will pick up the bill, Morse said in an interview.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and European nations have championed carbon capture for nations including China as vital to slowing global warming while keeping coal in the energy mix. China, the biggest producer of coal, gets about 80 percent of its electricity from burning the fuel, which spews more heat- trapping gases than natural gas or oil.

"The idea that carbon capture has to happen in China is a western idea," said Morse. Proposals by developed nations that seek Chinese cooperation ignore the "staggering" costs of clean-coal devices, Morse and colleagues said in the new report.

Companies developing capture systems in the U.S. include American Electric Power Co., the nation's biggest producer of electricity from coal, and Duke Energy Corp. In Europe, Alstom SA, E.ON AG, RWE AG and Vattenfall AB are testing the devices.

Himalayas hotspot of climate change

It's 4,000 miles of mountains, seas and valleys from Kathmandu to Copenhagen. With changing climate, it could well become 4,000 miles of sudden storms, flood and climate migrations.Recognising that nations need to pool resources and expertise to face climate change impacts, South Asian countries came together for the first time earlier this week for a climate mini-summit in Kathmandu ahead of the Copenhagen meet in December.

Himalayan ecosystems are 'the hotspots'. That's the message from the two-day South Asian Regional Climate Change Conference. The region's nations have "come to a bit of understanding" of the climate change challenges that transcend political boundaries, say environmentalists and policy makers. "It's a big first step with a positive outcome," M S Mani, environmental economist at the World Bank, told TOI on phone.

The mighty Himalayas are acutely vulnerable to climate change. "The Himalayas have been warming three times as fast as the world average and their glaciers are shrinking more rapidly than anywhere else and could disappear by 2035. The Ganges and Indus could become seasonal rather than year-round rivers," recently wrote Newsweek's science editor Sharon Begley.

As the source of most of the region's major rivers, changes in Himalayan ecosystems can drastically alter the lives of more than the 700 million who live in the region. Lesser snow and fast-shrinking glaciers mean rivers becoming trickles and effectively India, Nepal and Bangladesh's water sources drying up. At the same time, coastal areas like Maldives, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are threatened by rising seas levels.

U.S. wants G20 to axe fuel subsidies: source

The United States plans to call on the Group of 20 to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies in five years and increase oil market transparency when the group meets at the end of the month, according to a source familiar with the proposal.

The world's biggest energy user intends to argue fuel subsidies distort oil and product markets and artificially raise fuel demand, leading to higher greenhouse gas emissions, said the source, who asked not to be named.

This proposal — which could rankle G20 states with big fuel subsidies such as China, Russia, and India — calls on members to eliminate subsidies in five years. It argues non-members should end subsidies by 2020.

The plan for the September 24-25 summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, also says members should provide more timely and accurate information on the notoriously murky oil market, including on inventory levels and positions held in the futures markets.

Transparency and speculative activity have become an issue in commodity markets following the six-year record run that sent oil to all-time highs near $150 a barrel last year, battering the economies of import-reliant nations.

Public Support for Clean Energy Bill Shows the Deception in Bonner Astroturf Campaign

A recent poll sponsored by the Center for American Progress goes another step toward revealing the duplicity of Astroturf campaigns like the one that Bonner & Associates was running while representing the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).

The CAP poll shows that, in swing states, 63 percent of voters support the climate change legislation currently being considered in the Senate. And yet the Bonner crowd was fomenting a "grassroots" campaign specifically designed to make it look like the public was taking quite a different position.

Environmentalists have to declare themselves when they knock on your door, or contact your political representatives, advocating for better protection for the natural world (and for green jobs). Lobbyists also have to register – declaring the purpose for their political intervention and identity of their clients.

Once again, before PR firms like Bonner push their way into the public conversation, they should have to meet the same standard, especially when the opinion they represent favours their (usually anonymous) corporate sponsor and runs contrary to the will of 63 percent of the people who sincerely represent America's "grassroots."

BP's Tiber Find: Fodder for Oil Optimists or Pessimists?

What's really interesting about BP's "giant" Tiber discovery in the Gulf of Mexico is how it provides ammunition for both people optimistic about the future of the oil business and those that are a lot gloomier.

To wit: For folks such as Dan Yergin, head of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, BP's new find shows how technology will overcome. To get at the ultra-deepwater oil field, BP had to drill to record depths—deeper than Mt. Everest is high. Still, with oil at $70 a barrel, there could be $70 billion trapped in the ancient rocks.

These are precisely the kinds of oil fields that were technologically off-limits until recently, when the combination of improved drilling technology and seismic imaging techniques brought them within reach.

And BP's latest find, coming a few years after another big find at the Kaskida field, just shows how the once-dismissed Gulf of Mexico could prove a source of abundant—and politically-stable—oil for decades to come.

But the Tiber discovery also underscores exactly how tough the oil-exploration game is becoming. To actually pump the oil, BP's technical challenges are just beginning; other Gulf fields have taken years to bring on line.