Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Climate Progress



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Climate Progress

Climate Progress


If you can stomach it … they couldn't

Posted: 21 Oct 2009 07:16 AM PDT

Warning:  The photo below the jump is quite disturbing.

Guest blogger A. Siegel focuses on a too-little-seen side of our unsustainably overconsuming, petroleum-based culture — humanity's immense plastic footprint and what we can do about it. This was first published on his blog.

Midway Island, Oct 2009, Chris Jordan

Albatross Chick, Midway Island, Oct 2009, Chris Jordan

Courtesy of the camera and work of Chris Jordan, decaying Albatross chicks are sending a message from the Pacific gyre about the plastic footprint that humanity is leaving across the planet. Chris' introduction to this searing set of photos:

These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

For more, see Midway Journey


The Midway Journey photo stream.

Plastics are pervasive and a pervasive problem

"It's a toilet that never flushes, but just keeps accumulating," Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, says of the patch. "If you're an organism in this area you have six times as much chance of bumping into something plastic as you do something natural."

On plastics in the ocean, the best single approachable piece (with excellent, distressing photos) that I've see is Susan Casey's Plastic Ocean: Our oceans are turning into plastic … are we? at
Best Life Online. That article is HIGHLY recommended. (Pale Cold started She's dead! Wrapped in Plastic with a quote from this.)

And, well, talking of connecting crises, where do those plastics come from? Anyone ready to talk Peak Oil? Petroleum is
pervasive in modern life and one path to ameliorate Peak Oil is to reduce (eliminate) unnecessary use … e.g., plastics that end up polluting the globe.

Taking the smallest of steps: How much might canvas bags help?

From Reusable Bags.COM:

  1. The amount of plastic going to plastic bags is somewhat staggering to consider.

Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.

According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion)

100 billion of those grocery store and other shopping bags! Just how many layers of wrapping do we need around our purchases?

  1. And, the impact can be, literally devastating and near permanent.

Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.

Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest.

And, action matters … every canvas bag entered into the process can have an impact by reducing tomorrow's plastic load.

Each high quality reusable shopping bag you use has the potential to eliminate hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic bags over its lifetime.

Getting in the habit of carrying a canvas bag is a first step toward reducing (if not ending) a love affair with wasteful, polluting plastics.

A first, symbolic step that can have an impact …

Does symbolic have meaning?

Let us be clear, the news is grim when it comes to Global Warming. The Planet is on Hair Trigger for catastrophic climate change, with the potential for events to get out of our (humanity's) control (if we're not already there). The imperative for change mounts literally with each passing second.

The symbolic message of carrying a canvas bag to the grocery store in a McSUV to pick up fish flown and grapes shipped halfway around the world to your local grocery will not, in itself, change the globe for the better.

And, there is a good case to be made that emphasizing the small, easy changes can be counterproductive as people get a feeling that change will be easy, that they don't need to take serious action, and that the problem must not be so bad if the solutions are so easy. (Best discussion of this is probably Mike Tidwell's, CCAN, Efficient Light Bulbs Hurt Efforts to Fight Global Warming.)

Yet, the symbolic can have impact. There is something to be said for getting people to take baby steps as part of the training and development process to prepare them to take leaps and bounds.

And, the symbolic carries the message not just for the bearer but for those who see it.

Time to wake up . . .

It has gotten out of control.

Introduced 25 years ago, our society now consumes an estimated 1,000,000,000,000 (that's one trillion) plastic bags annually. The result is unnecessary pollution that litters
our landscapes and negatively impacts our environment. A global effort is emerging aimed at significantly reducing this number.

Thus, if you aren't yet, "Take Your Canvas Bags when you go to the Supermarket". And, well, help send this message to millions of others by helping this video go viral.

NOTE: There are countries around the world and communities around the world acting to end plastic shopping bags. From Ireland to China, these are working. This is a small, yet meaningful step, to step down our environmental and energy footprints — and perhaps help keep Albatross chicks' stomachs empty for food rather than filled with plastic debris.

NOTE 2: For serious consideration of personal action, see Fake Plastic Fish, one person's odyssey to a (near) no plastics existence.

GOP Rep. from district where civil rights workers were lynched talks about shooting "tree-hugging Democrats"; Pennsylvania state lawmaker says veterans who support climate change legislation are "traitors."

Posted: 21 Oct 2009 05:34 AM PDT

Given intellectual leaders like Rush "Why don't you just go kill yourself?" Limbaugh, it's no surprise the state of the conservative-side of the debate is so very coarse, as these reposts from Think Progress underscore:

Rep. Gregg HarperIn a new interview with Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS), Politico asks the congressman what the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus does. Harper's response:

We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition.

Harper represents Mississippi's 3rd congressional district, which contains Neshoba County — the place of one of the most infamous race-related crimes in American history. In 1964, white supremacists lynched three civil rights workers. In recent months, sportsmen around the country have been joining up with "tree-hugging" liberals on climate legislation. In April, the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus and other sportsmen's and environmental groups "called for Congress to pass global warming legislation that includes increased funding for natural resource protection."

Politico's Glenn Thrush reports that Harper is unrepentant about his remarks. Harper's spokesman said the remarks were "supposed to be fun. … It's having a good time."
Here's the second story from Think Progress:
Daryl MetcalfeA coalition of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, under the name Operation Free, is on a 21-state bus tour to alert the public about the dangers of global warming and its threat to national security. Upon hearing about the group's visit to Pennsylvania, State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R) blasted the veterans as "traitors" and compared them to Benedict Arnold:

"As a veteran, I believe that any veteran lending their name, to promote the leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change, in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security, is a traitor to the oath he or she took to defend the Constitution of our great nation!" Mr. Metcalfe's email reads. "Remember Benedict Arnold before giving credibility to a veteran who uses their service as a means to promote a leftist agenda. Drill Baby Drill!!!"

Rep. Metcalfe, who served in the U.S. Army from 1980-84, today defended the remarks, saying that "if the type of policies that an individual promotes undermines the Constitution and the law of the land in our country, then they are not patriots."

Global warming is inextricably linked to national security, with the potential to "aggravate existing problems such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions" around the world, which "could increase the pool of potential recruits into terrorist activity." In the past, Metcalfe has refused to support Domestic Violence Awareness month in Pennsylvania because the resolution referenced domestic abuse suffered by men, which Metcalfe interpreted as part of a "homosexual agenda." He also opposed a vote to "honor the 60th anniversary of a Muslim group in the state, because 'Muslims don't recognize Jesus Christ as God.'"

Nathan Myhrvold jumps the shark — and jumps ship on Levitt and Dubner (on their blog!) asserting: "Geoengineering is proposed only as a last resort to try to reduce or cope with the even greater harms of global warming! … The point of the chapter in SuperFreakonomics is that geoengineering might be good insurance in case we don't get global warming under control." Did he even read the book?

Posted: 20 Oct 2009 06:30 PM PDT

Un-friggin-believable.

Nathan Myhrvold, who Levitt and Dubner call the "polymath's polymath" — who is one of the primary "experts" the authors rely on to make the case for their central geoengineering-only approach to global warming — has just publicly repudiated that approach. Apparently he never read the chapter — or didn't understand it if he did.  And apparently in their rush to print this "rebuttal" to my debunkings, the Superfreaks didn't bother to read it closely, since he just wrote this jaw-dropper on their blog:

Geoengineering is proposed only as a last resort to try to reduce or cope with the even greater harms of global warming!

… The point of the chapter in SuperFreakonomics is that geoengineering might be good insurance in case we don't get global warming under control.

You can't make this stuff up.

As the Union of Concerned Scientists posted here about Myhrvold's amazing defense repudiation of Superfreakonomics:

That is exactly the opposite of what the book argues and represents a complete repudiation of the chapter from one of the main sources on which Levitt and Dubner relied.

Or go to the Bloomberg interview of Dubner and Caldeira that backs up my reporting on error-riddled Superfreakonomics for an independent view of what the book is about — and what the authors think the book is about:

Caldeira, who is researching the idea [of aerosol geoengineering], argues that it can succeed only if we first reduce emissions. Otherwise, he says, geoengineering can't begin to cope with the collateral damage, such as acidic oceans killing off shellfish.

Levitt and Dubner ignore his view and champion his work as a permanent substitute for emissions cuts. When I told Dubner that Caldeira doesn't believe geoengineering can work without cutting emissions, he was baffled. "I don't understand how that could be," he said. In other words, the Freakonomics guys just flunked climate science.

Are you baffled also?  The two leading experts (well, one expert and one F.A.K.E.R.) that Dubner and Leavitt relied on for their geoengineering-only solution don't believe in it!  Well, Caldeira doesn't believe in it.  As we'll see, it's impossible to figure out what Myhrvold believes.

Myhrvold is not a "polymath's polymath."  He repudiates the Superfreaks, so he's a contrarian's contrarian.

Why exactly does Myhrvold think the Superfreaks were so desperate to push the (incorrect) statement about Caldeira that his "research tells him that carbon dioxide is not the right villain"?  Since the Superfreaks made me take the PDF of the book down, go to the NPR interview of Levitt (transcript here):

So we're not – look, I'm not a scientist and Steven Dubner's not a scientist either, but we've managed to interact with some of the greatest scientists in this country. I think what we conclude is that the nature of the debate is just completely wrong. The real problem isn't that there's too much carbon in the air. The real problem is it's too hot.

Ouch.  But now it looks like the greatest scientists in this country don't even agree with them.

Read the Times online excerpt whose subhead actually claims "This time they claim that CO2 may be good"!

The book itself says:

It's not that we don't know how to stop polluting the atmosphere. We don't want to stop or aren't willing to pay the price.

And then there is Myhrvold himself in the book — for extended quotes see "Error-riddled Superfreakonomics', Part 2":

"If you believe that the scary stories could be true, or even possible, then you should also admit that relying only on reducing carbon-dioxide emissions is not a very good answer," he says.  In other words:  it's illogical to believe in a carbon-induced warming apocalypse and believe that such an apocalypse can be averted simply by curtailing new carbon emissions.  "The scary scenarios could occur even if we make Herculean efforts to reduce our emissions, in which case the only real answer is geo-engineering."

As I said in Part 1, not only is it not illogical, but I suspect most of the world's leading climate scientists believe that if you could curtail all new carbon emissions (including from deforestation) starting now (or even starting soon), you would indeed avoid apocaplyse.  In fact, as Caldeira makes clear, the reverse of Myrhvold's final statement is true:  ONLY if we make Herculean efforts to reduce our emissions, could geo-engineering possibly contribute to the solution.

But Myhrvold says (from the Times online excerpt):

Myhrvold is not arguing for an immediate deployment of the sulphur shield but, rather, that technologies like it be researched and tested so they are ready to use if the worst climate predictions come true.

Good for him.  He's "not arguing for an immediate deployment" of something that doesn't exist.  Good strategy.  If only his former company, Microsoft, had applied that approach with the Windows Vista operating system.  Zing!

So why is he pushing this approach?

He is also eager to get geoengineering moving forward because of what he sees as "a real head of steam" that global warming activists have gathered in recent years.

"They are seriously proposing doing a set of things that could have enormous impact — and we think probably negative impact — on human life," he says. "They want to divert a huge amount of economic value toward immediate and precipitous anti-carbon initiatives, without thinking things through.

"This will have a huge drag on the world economy. There are billions of poor people who will be greatly delayed, if not entirely precluded, from attaining a First World standard of living."

Ah, those extremist, nutty "global warming activists" — like, say, climatologist Ken Caldeira himself who has said:

I believe the correct CO2 emission target is zero. I believe that it is essentially immoral for us to be making devices (automobiles, coal power plants, etc) that use the atmosphere as a sewer for our waste products.  I am in favor of outlawing production of such devices as soon as possible….

Every carbon dioxide emission adds to climate damage and increasing risk of catastrophic consequences. There is no safe level of emission.

I compare CO2 emissions to mugging little old ladies … It is wrong to mug little old ladies and wrong to emit carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The right target for both mugging little old ladies and carbon dioxide emissions is zero.

I am in favor of fire insurance but I am also against playing with matches while sitting on a keg of gunpowder. I am in favor of research into geoengineering options but I am also against carbon dioxide emissions.

Nathan is apparently pushing geo-engineering research because people like Caldeira (and me) want to immediately and precipitously cut carbon.

But wait, Myhrvold now says on the Superfreaks blog:

Geoengineering is proposed only as a last resort to try to reduce or cope with the even greater harms of global warming! The global-warming community has treated us to one scary scenario after another. Some are predicted by the science, some are extrapolations beyond current science, and some are not much better than wild guesses, but they could happen. Should we fail at cutting enough and those things occur, geoengineering might offer a better option….

This kind of attack [by Romm] makes it very difficult for people to suggest new ideas. I have thick enough skin to laugh it off when Romm attacks me, but plenty of people don't. The politicization of science has a terrible impact on the unfettered discourse of ideas that is so important to making progress. This has been a big impediment to geoengineering. Serious climate scientists who are privately interested in geoengineering are loathe to discuss it publicly because they worry that somebody like Romm will attack and ridicule them if they do. Indeed, part of the reason I chose to work on geoengineering and chose to go public about it is to try to get the topic to be more widely discussed.

The point of the chapter in SuperFreakonomics is that geoengineering might be good insurance in case we don't get global warming under control.

Except, of course, I have only been attacking and ridiculing people who support the geoengineering-only approach — the very approach that Myhrvold himself utterly rejects here.

Yes, good old reasonable Nathan Myhrvold, who just sees geoengineering as an insurance policy "in case we don't get global warming under control."  But then, of course, he trashes the "global warming activists" who want to do just that in the book.  It is Myhrvold and the Superfreaks who have poisoned the dialogue.  Indeed, they go out of their way to attack and ridicule those who want to try to get global warming under control sans geoengineering.  As I note in "Error-riddled 'Superfreakonomics', Part 2," Myhrvold and the geniuses groupthinkers at IV, however, dismiss all of the solutions:

In the darkened conference room, Myhrvold cues up an overhead slide that summarizes IV's views of the current slate of proposed global warming solutions.  The slide says:

  • Too little
  • Too late
  • Too optimistic.

Too little means that typical conservation efforts simply won't make much of a difference. "If you believe there is a problem worth solving," Myhrvold says, "then these solutions won't be enough to solve it.  Wind power and most other alternative energy things are cute, but they don't scale to a sufficient degree. At this point, wind farms are a government subsidy scheme, fundamentally."  What about the beloved Prius and other low-emissions vehicles?  "They're great," he says, "except that transportation is just not that big of a sector."

[Pause for laughter.  Then for weeping.]

Yes, as I noted, globally "Transport accounts for around a quarter of total CO2 emissions."  In fact, transport is the key sector, because reducing carbon emissions in electricity generation is so damn easy (see "An introduction to the core climate solutions").

That's why I call Myhrvold and his ilk, F.A.K.E.R.s — Famous "Authorities" whose Knowledge (of climate) is Error-riddled.

And, then we get this multi-whopper piece of nonsense:

Too optimistic:  "A lot of the things that people say would be good things probably aren't," Myrhvold says.  As an example he points to solar power.  "The problem with solar cells is that they're black, because they are designed to absorb light from the sun. But only about 12% gets turned into electricity, and the rest is reradiated as heat — which contributed to global warming."

As discussed in Part 1, this may set the FAKER record for howlers in one paragraph.

In his "rebuttal," Myhrvold never actually debunks the central critique I make of that paragraph.  I have a little bombshell to drop on that tomorrow, which some readers have asked to see, so for now, let me end by noting one typically nonsensical thing Myhrvold says in his rambling, ad hominem attack on me:

Strangely, he gives comparatively little attention to the main point of the chapter, which is geoengineering.

Please do go check the quote at the Freakonomics blog here.

I give "comparatively little attention to the main point of the chapter, which is geoengineering."???  You can't make this stuff up — unless of course you're a "polymath's polymath."

So now we know that not only didn't he read the chapter of SuperFreakonomics he is defending repudiating defending repudiating, he didn't even bother to read "Error-riddled Superfreakonomics, Part 1," which he links to in his defense repudiation (!), in which I repost Caldeira's devastating critique of the geoengineering-only approach (and add some of my own) or "Error-riddled Superfreakonomics, Part 2," which focuses on him, in which I actually repost Robock's entire critique of the geoengineering-only approach, complete with citations.

His post vindicates my original assessment.

I believe the correct CO2 emission target is zero. I believe that it is essentially immoral for us to be making devices (automobiles, coal power plants, etc) that use the atmosphere as a sewer for our waste products.  I am in favor of outlawing production of such devices as soon as possible….

Every carbon dioxide emission adds to climate damage and increasing risk of catastrophic consequences. There is no safe level of emission.

I compare CO2 emissions to mugging little old ladies … It is wrong to mug little old ladies and wrong to emit carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The right target for both mugging little old ladies and carbon dioxide emissions is zero.

I am in favor of fire insurance but I am also against playing with matches while sitting on a keg of gunpowder. I am in favor of research into geoengineering options but I am also against carbon dioxide emissions.

Carbon dioxide emissions represent a real threat to humans and natural systems, and I fear we may have already dawdled too long. That is why I want to see research into geoengineering — because the threat posed by CO2 is real and large, not because the threat is imaginary and small.

Limbaugh to NY Times environment reporter Revkin: "Why don't you just go kill yourself?"

Posted: 20 Oct 2009 03:42 PM PDT

From today's The Rush Limbaugh Show (via Media Matters):

LIMBAUGH: I think these militant environmentalists, these wackos, have so much in common with the jihad guys. Let me explain this. What do the jihad guys do? The jihad guys go to families under their control and they convince these families to strap explosives on who? Not them. On their kids. Grab your 3-year-old, grab your 4-year-old, grab your 6-year-old, and we're gonna strap explosives on there, and then we're going to send you on a bus, or we're going to send you to a shopping center, and we're gonna tell you when to pull the trigger, and you're gonna blow up, and you're gonna blow up everybody around you, and you're gonna head up to wherever you're going, 73 virgins are gonna be there. The little 3- or 4-year-old doesn't have the presence of mind, so what about you? If it's so great up there, why don't you go? Why don't you strap explosives on you — and their parents don't have the guts to tell the jihad guys, "You do it! Why do you want my kid to go blow himself up?" The jihad guys will just shoot 'em, 'cause the jihad guys have to maintain control.

The environmentalist wackos are the same way. This guy from The New York Times, if he really thinks that humanity is destroying the planet, humanity is destroying the climate, that human beings in their natural existence are going to cause the extinction of life on Earth — Andrew Revkin. Mr. Revkin, why don't you just go kill yourself and help the planet by dying?

Yes, one of the few remaining intellectual leaders in the conservative movement — whose views dominate conservative discourse because few if any conservative politicians will publicly disagree with him — has just told the lead climate reporter for the New York Times to commit suicide.  Who among the deniers and delayers will have the courage to denounce Limbaugh here?

What incited Limbaugh?  Here is Revkin's NYT blog today (emphasis added by MM):

More children equal more carbon dioxide emissions. And recent research has resulted in  renewed coverage of the notion that one of the cheapest ways to curb emissions in coming decades would be to provide access to birth control for tens of millions of women around the world who say they desire it. A study by researchers at the London School of Economics and commissioned by the Optimum Population Trust came to the following conclusion:

Contraception is 'Greenest' Technology

U.N. data suggest that meeting unmet need for family planning would reduce unintended births by 72 per cent, reducing projected world population in 2050 by half a billion to 8.64 billion. Between 2010 and 2050 12 billion fewer "people-years" would be lived — 326 billion against 338 billion under current projections. The 34 gigatons of CO2 saved in this way would cost $220 billion – roughly $7 a ton [metric tons]. However, the same CO2 saving would cost over $1 trillion if low-carbon technologies were used. (Here's a link to a pdf of the report.)

I recently raised the question of whether this means we'll soon see a market in baby-avoidance carbon credits similar to efforts to sell  CO2 credits for avoiding deforestation. This is purely a thought experiment, not a proposal. But the issue is one that is rarely discussed in climate treaty talks or in debates over United States climate legislation. If anything, the population-climate question is more pressing in the United States than in developing countries, given the high per-capita carbon dioxide emissions here and the  rate of population growth. If giving women a way to limit family size is such a cheap win for emissions, why isn't it in the mix?

Let me make three points.

  1. First, I would not have written the post Revkin did for reasons I have explained before and don't intend to repeat — see "Consumption dwarfs population as main global warming threat").  For all the reasons discussed in that post, this blog is not going to focus on population.  I have more than enough to write about on the policies and strategies that must be enacted if we are to have a chance at preserving a livable climate — even assuming I knew of and believed in viable, high-impact population-related strategies, which I don't.
  2. Second, relatedly, the 34 Gt of CO2 over 40 years Revkin cites sounds like a lot but remember we're currently at about 30 Gt CO2 per year.  The condensed stabilization wedges I analyze (major mitigation efforts spread over 40-years rather than Princeton's 50 years), save 20 Gt carbon (73 Gt of CO2) through 2050.  Nearly half a wedge could be significant, but then again if we do the wedges we must to achieve 450 ppm (let alone 350) then CO2 per capita will drop very, very sharply and the likely CO2 savings from population efforts will also be dramatically reduced — see "How the world can (and will) stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm: The full global warming solution."
  3. Third, Limbaugh's remarks are far beyond the pale even for his brand of extremism.   Urging another human being to commit suicide is grotesque.

Comments are welcome as always, but please be more civil than Limbaugh.

Revkin responds here.

Related Posts:

More children equal more carbon dioxide emissions. And recent research has resulted in  renewed coverage of the notion that one of the cheapest ways to curb emissions in coming decades would be to provide access to birth control for tens of millions of women around the world who say they desire it. A study by researchers at the London School of Economics and commissioned by the Optimum Population Trust came to the following conclusion:

Contraception is 'Greenest' Technology

U.N. data suggest that meeting unmet need for family planning would reduce unintended births by 72 per cent, reducing projected world population in 2050 by half a billion to 8.64 billion. Between 2010 and 2050 12 billion fewer "people-years" would be lived – 326 billion against 338 billion under current projections. The 34 gigatons of CO2 saved in this way would cost $220 billion – roughly $7 a ton [metric tons]. However, the same CO2 saving would cost over $1trillion if low-carbon technologies were used. (Here's a link to a pdf of the report.)

I recently raised the question of whether this means we'll soon see a market in baby-avoidance carbon credits similar to efforts to sell  CO2 credits for avoiding deforestation. This is purely a thought experiment, not a proposal. But the issue is one that is rarely discussed in climate treaty talks or in debates over United States climate legislation. If anything, the population-climate question is more pressing in the United States than in developing countries, given the high per-capita carbon dioxide emissions here and the  rate of population growth. If giving women a way to limit family size is such a cheap win for emissions, why isn't it in the mix?

U.S. wind energy industry installed 1,649 MW in third quarter, more than Q2 and Q308

Posted: 20 Oct 2009 01:47 PM PDT

AWEA

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) released its third quarter (Q3) market report today.  Their news release noted:

Since the early July announcement of rules to implement the stimulus bill, the wind industry has seen over 1,600 MW (enough to serve the equivalent of 480,000 average households) of completed projects, and over 1,700 MW of construction starts. These projects equate to about $6.5 billion in new investment….

The total wind power capacity now operating in the U.S. is over 31,000 MW, generating enough electricity to power the equivalent of nearly 9 million homes, avoiding the emissions of 57 million tons of carbon annually and reducing expected carbon emissions from the electricity sector by 2.5%.

Thank you President Obama and Congressional Democrats (see "EIA projects wind at 5% of U.S. electricity in 2012, all renewables at 14%, thanks to Obama stimulus!"

Here are some more factoids from the release:

The state posting the fastest growth rate in the third quarter was Arizona, which installed its first utility-scale project. Pennsylvania ranked 2nd in growth with 29%, followed by Illinois with 22%, Wyoming with 21%, and New Mexico with 20%.

And from the report:

Texas again gains the largest amount of new capacity bringing the state closer to the 9-GW mark.

A 201-MW project completion in Illinois makes it the tenth state in the "Gigawatt club."

Arizona saw the addition of the first utility-scale wind farm, making it the fastest-growing in the third quarter.

There are now utility-scale wind power installations in 36 states.

AWEA

Now we need to pass the climate and clean energy bill.

Related Post:

What makes a news story? A boy not in a balloon — or a genuinely ballooning effort to achieve 350 ppm?

Posted: 20 Oct 2009 12:36 PM PDT

http://images.brisbanetimes.com.au/2009/10/16/793912/420x600balloon-boy-cnn-420x0.jpg

Clearly, pretending to loft your kid across the countryside in a balloon is the big story.

But what about the fairly extraordinary effort that the kids at 350.org and Bill McKibben are mounting next weekend?

They've taken serious scientific analysis—the contention first raised by Jim Hansen that 350 ppm co2 is the target we should be aiming for—and turned it into a real movement. On Saturday, their day of global action, there will be at least 3,800 events and rallies and demonstrations in almost 170 countries. It'll be one of the most widespread days of political action in the planet's history.  People are rallying all over the place:

  • in Kabul
  • in Iraq
  • in the coup-ridden capital of Honduras
  • on the shores of the dwindling Dead Sea, Israeli activists will make a giant human 3 on their beach, Palestinians a huge 5 on their shore, and the Jordanians a 0 on theirs.
  • across the U.S.—there will be at least a thousand actions, one of the best chances to make a loud cry for strengthening the climate bills on Capitol Hill.   There's one near you—here's a link that will show you what's going on in your neighborhood.
  • in China, where there will be at least 300 rallies—this is something new for the Chinese people, to be part of a global environmental movement. And with the leading environmental groups, top Chinese websites, and famous universities on board, it's got full support from top to bottom.  Here's the website up in Mandarin.

They've gotten plenty of coverage in the blogosphere, and in the foreign press:

  • If you read Spanish, go here
  • Arabic here
  • Russian here
  • or English, but in India, here.

But in the bigtime U.S. press? So far nothing much.

Maybe editors think it's too complicated—that people can't deal with that much science. But clearly they can—and as I pointed out last week, given new research like Tripati's paper in Science they're going to have to (see Science: CO2 levels haven't been this high for 15 million years, when it was 5° to 10°F warmer and seas were 75 to 120 feet higher — "We have shown that this dramatic rise in sea level is associated with an increase in CO2 levels of about 100 ppm").

We're not going to get back to 350 anytime soon, obviously, but it's a good sign that people all over the world are calling for it. And a bad sign that our press, who have plenty of time to deal with the political realism of climate, seem to think that scientific realism is hopelessly idealistic. As Bill McKibben keeps saying, Republicans and Democrats need to negotiate, and Americans and Chinese—but at root, it's a debate between human beings on the one hand and physics and chemistry on the other.

Take a look at the slideshow of stuff that's already happened—this is a small taste of what the weekend will bring. It's what a movement looks like, and it's about time.  We'll see thousands more of these images on Saturday—the question is whether newspaper readers and tv viewers will see them too.

For the science behind 350, see "Stabilize at 350 ppm or risk ice-free planet, warn NASA, Yale, Sheffield, Versailles, Boston et al." Since the science is preliminary and it is not not yet politically possible to get to 450 ppm, let alone 350, my basic view is, let's start working now toward stabilizing below 450 ppm.  I think we will need ultimately to get back to 350, and the faster the better.  But since it ain't easy, I hope climate scientists will shed more light on how fast is really needed.  Either way, this is what needs to be done technology-wise:  "How the world can (and will) stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm: The full global warming solution (updated)."  The difference between the two targets is that for 450 ppm, you need to do the 12-14 wedges in four decades.  For 350 ppm, you (roughly) need 8 wedges in about two decades plus another 10 wedges over the next three decades (and then have the world go carbon negative as soon as possible after that), which requires a global WWII-style and WWII-scale strategy (see "An open letter to James Hansen on the real truth about stabilizing at 350 ppm").

The great environmental writer and founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben, helped me research this post

Energy and Global Warming News for October 20: Brazil seeks climate target for all Amazon nations

Posted: 20 Oct 2009 10:49 AM PDT

Brazil seeks climate target for all Amazon nations

Brazil wants to forge a common position among all Amazon basin countries for a global climate summit later this year, the country's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said on Monday.

Brazil has been seeking a growing role in climate talks designed to agree upon a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for global warming.

Lula was considering inviting the presidents of all Amazon states to discuss the issue on November 26, he told reporters after a meeting in Sao Paulo with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Brazil, one of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters, is expected to announce its own targets for the December summit in Copenhagen by the end of this month. It is considering freezing its total greenhouse gas emissions at 2005 levels.

Lula last week said Brazil, which harbors the vast majority of the Amazon rain forest, would cut deforestation 80 percent by 2020 from a 10-year average through 2005. Other countries of the Amazon region include Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana.

White House Announces Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Program as Major Part of `Recovery through Retrofit`; Renewable Funding Envisioned the Model and is National Leader in Financing PACE Programs

Today at the White House, Vice President Biden released his `Recovery through Retrofit` plan to expand green job opportunities in the United States and boost energy savings for middle class Americans by retrofitting homes for energy efficiency. The `Recovery through Retrofit` report, which was developed by the Vice President`s Middle Class Task Force, is a roadmap to create new green jobs, provide financial relief to middle-class families, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The plan includes a national pilot program to provide significant federal funds to support the development and implementation of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs across the country. PACE programs, which are public-private partnerships with state and local governments, allow private property owners to pay for energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements through a voluntary property tax assessment. `Recovery through Retrofit` includes a detailed policy framework for implementing pilot PACE programs (http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/PACE_Principles.pdf). The founders of Renewable Funding developed the PACE concept and the firm is now the national leader in administering and financing PACE programs.

"Renewable Funding is a strong supporter of the Obama Administration`s efforts to create jobs, reduce energy costs for families, and reduce our carbon footprint," said Cisco DeVries, President of Renewable Fundingand originator of the PACE concept. "The upfront costs of undertaking clean energy projects often prevent property owners from going solar or improving the energy efficiency of their homes and businesses. By spreading the project costs over up to 20 years through a property tax assessment, PACE overcomes this hurdle and enables homeowners and businesses to make retrofits with no up-front capital costs."

Renewable Funding provides services to programs in several municipalities in Colorado and California, with dozens more in the planning phase. To date, legislation to enable PACE programs has been adopted in 14 states. Former President Clinton recently announced an effort by the Clinton Global Initiative to push for 50 municipalities to adopt the PACE model on an accelerated schedule. Renewable Funding is part of the PACE NOW Coalition and is an "implementation partner" in the Clinton Global Initiative effort.

'Green jobs' supported at Senate hearing held in Pittsburgh

Clean energy and the "green jobs" attached to it enjoyed wide support in testimony at a U.S. Senate hearing in Pittsburgh yesterday, but differences remain about how and how quickly federal policies should push those goals.

Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., who hosted the hearing, acknowledged those tensions between "competing interests" in Pennsylvania coal, natural gas and alternative energy industries as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee began work on legislation titled "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act," introduced earlier this month.

Michael Peck, North American spokesman for Gamesa USA, a Spanish wind turbine manufacturer with factories and 850 employees in Pennsylvania, urged establishment of a national standard mandating 12 percent renewable energy by 2012. That would send a strong message to investors and boost demand and job creation, he said.

"We're predicting a 40 percent drop in new wind projects this year and the recession has crippled demand. Our factories are idle," Mr. Peck said. "The U.S. is at the brink of losing manufacturing jobs to India and China and implementation of a near-term renewable energy standard would send a strong message and would do the most to boost demand."

Jason Walsh, representing Green For All, a national organization supportive of "green" economic growth, and Holly Childs, executive director of the Green Building Alliance of Western Pennsylvania, said up to 13,000 new blue-collar jobs could be created in the Pittsburgh region by federal training programs included in the draft legislation under consideration.

CEOs no longer refute climate change

U.S. chief executives no longer reject claims of human-caused climate change, putting to rest a dispute that has raged in boardrooms for decades, said the head of PG&E on Thursday.

Members of the Business Council, a group of executives from the top 120 U.S. companies, have altered their beliefs about climate change significantly, said PG&E Chief Executive Officer Peter Darbee in an interview. Darbee was attending the Business Council's October gathering in Cary, North Carolina.

"No one among the group was arguing the science of climate change," said Darbee. "That debate, at least in that forum, appears to be over. The discussion was really about, 'climate change is happening, it is a challenge of vast proportions and it will require an effort on the part of mankind to respond to this challenge.'"

Darbee also said a tangled web of state and federal laws governing energy use and conservation was delaying action.

"The greatest challenge we face getting our business done is the unintentional gauntlet of government regulation," he said. "What renewable energy developers have to go through — the hoops and hoops and hoops."

Largest 'smart grid' test hopes to shock consumers about energy use

On Sunday nights, Philip DiStefano fills up his car. In most towns, this would not be a noteworthy event, but in this campus town, it is. DiStefano is chancellor of the University of Colorado's sprawling campus here, and his car, a hulking Ford Escape, gets 54 miles per gallon.

That's because it is a plug-in hybrid and he fills it by plugging into the wall in his garage.

As he and most other residents here readily admit, Boulder is not a normal American city. That is one reason why Boulder and DiStefano's embassy-like home have been selected for the first big demonstration of the value of what is called the "smart grid" concept.

While other towns may claim to be working toward a smart grid, Xcel Energy, the local utility, has rechristened Boulder "SmartGridCity," calling it in a recent press release the "first fully functioning smart city in the world."

The smart grid idea can mean different things to different people. On a national scale, though, it may be the most ambitious move the United States could make toward cutting its emissions from burning fossil fuels. Fifty percent of the nation's electricity comes from coal-fired power plants. Americans are accustomed to using far more electricity than any other large nation on the planet. The smart grid effort is about finding ways to change the electricity grid so that utilities can help reduce peoples' juice-guzzling habits.

Take DiStefano's house, for example. A four-bedroom showplace designed for holding university functions, it has a big solar array on its roof and an automated wiring system that turns off unneeded lights and tweaks down the heating, the water heater and other appliances when DiStefano and his wife, Yvonne, are away. Just before they return, it turns things back on again so he can sit cozily in his office and view his electricity use through a special portal installed on his laptop.

Since this summer, the DiStefanos have cut their electric bill by 14 percent. During times of peak energy use next year, they will save more money by selling Xcel some of the electricity from the solar array on their house, or from the big storage battery in the car. "If we're gone and there is a power outage," DiStefano added, proudly, "the electricity we have will go to power the refrigeration, the security system, the sprinkler system and our home office."