Homeearth Security

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Posted: 14 Sep 2009 06:01 AM PDT

Just about everywhere you look ice is melting — see USGS report details "recent dramatic shrinkage" in U.S. glaciers, matching global decline.

Here is a very impressive presentation from a 2009 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference: "Photographer James Balog shares new image sequences from the Extreme Ice Survey, a network of time-lapse cameras recording glaciers receding at an alarming rate, some of the most vivid evidence yet of climate change."

Video beats even the best photographs, I think (see "Must see: Photographing Climate Change").. Either way, the visual evidence is stunning, and may be the best response to efforts by deniers to push the nonsense of global cooling.

Large Antarctic glacier thinning 4 times faster than it was 10 years ago: "Nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier."
Another one bites the dust, literally: Bolivia's 18,000 year-old Chacaltaya glacier is gone
Another climate impact coming faster than predicted: Glacier National Park to go glacier-free a decade early
World's Glaciers Shrink for 18th Year
Human-caused Arctic warming overtakes 2,000 years of natural cooling, "seminal" study finds
Stabilize at 350 ppm or risk ice-free planet, warn NASA, Yale, Sheffield, Versailles, Boston et al
Two trillion tons of land ice lost since 2003, rate of Greenland summer ice loss triples 2007 record

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) joins key Dems in proposal to boost carbon capture and storage in climate bill

Posted: 14 Sep 2009 05:48 AM PDT

Sen. Robert Byrd from the coal state of West Virginia has long been seen as a pretty rock solid 'no' vote on the climate bill. Nate Silver's "Probability of Yes" vote for Byrd is 19.4%, and I've heard that's optimistic. He said this summer he wouldn't vote for the House bill "in its present form" — although, like most Senators, he probably doesn't know what in it.

Still, he has decided to engage in the process of working with other Democratic senators to push carbon capture and storage technology. His office press release quotes him saying:

"If our nation is to benefit from the next generation of clean coal technology, the private sector needs greater certainty and robust financial support in order to make the necessary investments….

I will continue to engage the Administration and the Senate to make sure that West Virginians have a seat at the table during this climate debate."

E&E News PM (subs. req'd) had a big story on this Friday night, with details on the proposal:

Five influential coal-state Senate Democrats floated today they say would help with the widespread commercial deployment of carbon capture and sequestration technologies.

Sens. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Warner of Virginia, and Arlen Specter and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania stand out among a group of eight Democrats calling on the Environment and Public Works and Finance committees to include a range of special incentives for the electric utility and coal industries in cap-and-trade legislation this fall.

They requested several changes to the House-passed climate bill, H.R. 2454, including more funding and bonus allowances to power companies as they face greenhouse gas emission limits on their new and existing plants. That would essentially allow power plant owners to collect more money in allowances as they sequester more emissions.

You can read the proposal here, but I wouldn't bother because it's pretty okay and certain to change more than once as this process evolves. It throws even more money at coal with carbon capture and storage, which I suspect is relatively pointless (see "Is coal with carbon capture and storage a core climate solution?") And I doubt the money will even get spent because CCS is just too damn expensive (see Harvard stunner: "Realistic" first-generation CCS costs a whopping $150 per ton of CO2 — 20 cents per kWh!)

But I could be wrong, and it's early well worth finding out if CCS works.. That's especially true since if it does, the future is cofiring coal and biomass with CCS and producing negative-carbon electricity. If more money for CCS gets Byrd's vote — at least to block a filibuster — and the votes of people like Baucus, it's well worth it. True, he might well bail on the final bill, but engaging him in the process seems like a positive step.

The biggest flaw in the proposal seems to be that gives too much money upfront to new coal plants that promise to do CCS, but then has no penalties if they fail to deliver on the CCS. That needs to be fixed, but I can't see many scenarios where new coal plants without CCS get built after this bill passes. And the only CCS plants that get built will be ones that the government essentially covers most of the cost of, which means not bloody many until costs drop sharply, probably post-2030.

Here are more excerpts from the story:

Separately, the group suggested an exemption from new greenhouse gas technology standards on coal mines and landfill methane projects. Instead, they asked for both to be added to the list of domestic offset projects that industry could fund as an alternative to making their own direct emission reductions.

A Senate Democratic aide said this change could result in expanding the domestic offset pool by as much as 45 percent.

Without going into specifics, the group also urged the Senate to include language that addresses the legal liability for long-term carbon storage. And it encouraged the establishment of a $10 billion, 10-year program that would help get carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology into widespread use around the country — something that already is in the House-passed bill.

The senators also want to include a congressional finding that "it is in the public interest to achieve widespread, commercial-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage, both in America and throughout Asia before January 1, 2030."

The draft language is the result of a working group led by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) established in April as part of a broader outreach campaign to senators who do not sit directly on the relevant committees writing the climate bill. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) also signed onto the draft language.

"We believe our nation needs all sources of energy — including coal — to meet our future demands," the group wrote to EPW Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). "We also know that other countries, such as China and India, depend heavily on coal as an energy resource. Therefore, widespread, commercial-scale deployment of carbon capture and sequestration technology for coal will be critical if we are to meet our national and global climate goals."

The senators said it is "imperative" that their legislative suggestions make it into the final climate change bill, though none of them promised that these requests alone would win their vote. Each said they have "other priorities" as the Senate forges ahead with its sweeping energy and global warming package….

"We're very encouraged to see such a diverse group of senators working together, making progress, and moving climate legislation forward," said Tony Kreindler, a spokesman at the Environmental Defense Fund.

"It is a good-faith effort to address the legal and regulatory barriers to widespread deployment of CCS," added Paul Bledsoe of the National Commission on Energy Policy,

UN suspends largest CDM auditor — Copenhagen needs to clean up the Clean Development Mechanism, Senate should keep House's tough offset language

Posted: 13 Sep 2009 04:15 AM PDT

Several months ago I met with the lead climate negotiator for a major European country. I spelled out some of my oft-repeated concerns about international offsets aka the Clean Development Mechanism. He kept nodding his head and said, "Work with us to fix it."

Here are the key points about the CDM:

It's certainly not as bad as many people think (see excellent overview from Point Carbon here — "The CDM: Rip-offsets or real reductions?")
The Europeans are going to insist on keeping it. It remains a principal mechanism for having polluters pay for clean energy in developing countries. We certainly need some such mechanism.
Under the House climate bill, we don't have to participate in any international offset market that does not meet high standards for quality assurance.
For all the lame and/or insufficiently audited CDM projects that became certified emissions reduction (CER) credits for the Europeans to buy instead of actual emissions reductions, they only bought about 80 million in 2008 and the average price was about $25/ton (see "Do the 2 billion offsets allowed in Waxman-Markey gut the emissions targets?").
Many of the cheapest tons — the dubious Chinese HFC projects — are largely gone and the standards for CDM are certain to be tightened in whatever deal comes out of Copenhagen deal in the wake of ongoing news about questionable CDM oversight.
The central conclusions of my recent analyses and discussions with leading experts this year remains true. Large-scale, inexpensive international offsets don't exist nor will they. Were the U.S. to enter the CDM market in a big way, prices would go up. The overwhelming majority of emissions reductions in the climate bill as currently written will be met with domestic clean energy strategies (see "Game changer, Part 2: Unconventional gas makes the 2020 Waxman-Markey target so damn easy and cheap to meet).

That said, some in this country are trying to weaken in the Senate bill the international offsets oversight provisions found in the House clean air, clean water, clean energy jobs bill. The latest story from the UK's Sunday Times, "Carbon-trading market hit by UN suspension of clean-energy auditor," should undercut the rationale for those efforts:

The legitimacy of the $100 billion (£60 billion) carbon-trading market has been called into question after the world's largest auditor of clean-energy projects was suspended by United Nations inspectors.

SGS UK had its accreditation suspended last week after it was unable to prove its staff had properly vetted projects that were then approved for the carbon-trading scheme, or even that they were qualified to do so.

The episode will be embarrassing for European lawmakers in the run-up to the global climate summit in Copenhagen, where they will attempt to lure big polluters such as America and China into a binding agreement to replace the Kyoto protocol. SGS is the second such company to be suspended – Norway's DNV was penalised last November for similar infractions.

The EU's carbon-trading system, which puts a price on pollution through carbon permits that can be bought and sold, is the key element in Europe's fight against climate change.

About a fifth of the $100 billion of credits traded annually come from projects funded under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The heavily criticised programme allows industrialised countries to offset their pollution by buying "certified emission reductions credits" generated by low-car-bon schemes in the developing world. China and India are the biggest generators of the credits: more than 900 projects are now running, producing billions of credits, with thousands more in the pipeline.

Critics say the system is not sufficiently policed and allows western polluters to buy their way out of more costly carbon-cutting measures.

All such schemes must first be approved by organisations such as SGS. DNV was the single biggest auditor until it was suspended last year, when much of its workload was shifted to SGS, which was simply unable to cope.

Simon Shaw, chairman of EEA Fund Management, a backer of emission-reduction projects and an investor in Climate Exchange, the carbon-trading platform, said: "There was obviously a lack of resources. We knew this was coming."

UN inspectors said they found six irregularities in a recent spot check. The firm has now rectified these, but remains suspended until the UN verifies sufficient changes have been made. SGS could not be reached for comment.

Lawmakers are expected to reform the CDM in Copenhagen in December.

More vetting and oversight of projects are required — and tougher standards for auditors. And that should improve quality and raise costs, both very good things.

Earth Days: a history of world environmentalism in 90 minutes guardian.co.uk

Earth Days: a history of world environmentalism in 90 minutes
guardian.co.uk

Rockefeller Finds It's Better to Negotiate on Climate Bill Than ... New York Times

Rockefeller Finds It's Better to Negotiate on Climate Bill Than ...
New York Times

Warming may cut risky states' GDP by a fifth-study Reuters

Warming may cut risky states' GDP by a fifth-study
Reuters

Monday, September 14, 2009

Politics and the Age Gap New York Times

Politics and the Age Gap

New York Times

Sunday, September 13, 2009

The Black Heart Of Climate Change Atlantic Online

The Black Heart Of Climate Change
Atlantic Online

Protecting climate change refugees guardian.co.uk

Protecting climate change refugees
guardian.co.uk

Climate Progress

Radical, racist signs featured at 9/12 march on DC — and one vindicating my birther-denier link

Posted: 13 Sep 2009 05:40 AM PDT

img00056-1

Last month I noted "The top 5 ways the 'birthers' are like the deniers." The above sign, from the 9/12 Project DC march on Washington, is worth those thousand words. Yesterday, countless right-wing protesters were in DC, inspired by uber-extremist Glenn Beck and organized by Republican lobbyists. Tasteless wingnut signs, like 'Bury Obamacare with Kennedy', were the norm. Think Progress attended the rally and has much, much more in this repost:

This morning on ABC's Good Morning America, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) embraced the protesters at today's 9/12 March in Washington, DC, saying that he was "glad they're here to take back their country." He characterized the attendees as nonpartisan, adding that "it's not about President Obama. It's not about the Democrats." Several other Republican lawmakers, including Reps. Tom Price (GA), Mike Pence (IN), Marsha Blackburn (T), and Phil Gingrey (GA) planned to attend and speak at the event.

Members of ThinkProgress attended today's march and the signs carried by these protesters were hardly nonpartisan — and were often racist, radical portrayals of Obama, despite DeMint's claim. Some examples of what we saw:

signcomp1

signcomp2

signcomp3

In an interview with the Washington Independent, DeMint claimed that the attendees at the march were "a cross-section of the population." When it was pointed out to him that almost everyone there was white, DeMint simply said, "It's probably just the time and organization and the media that promoted it."

Mark McKinnon, a former adviser to Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) presidential campaign, has warned conservatives from embracing events like the 9/12 March. "It's bad for Republicans because in the absence of any real leadership, the freaks fill the void and define the party," McKinnon said.

Other signs showed Obama as a "Democratic Socialism" and called him a "bloodsucking…alien." More offensive signs here and here and here.

At the march, DeMint repeated his Waterloo remarks, announcing to the crowd, "Ladies and Gentlemen: Welcome to Waterloo!" He claimed that the health care debate is "a critical battle for the heart and soul of America, and for freedom itself."

DeMint told Fox News that today's attendees were "informed" and "outraged." "I've never been so proud to be an American," he said.

buryobamacare

Much ado about not much: New Ag Chairwoman may not change Senate dynamic on climate bill push

Posted: 12 Sep 2009 11:16 AM PDT

Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) has taken over as chair of the Senate Agriculture committee from Tom Harkin (D-IA). The NY Times (via Climate Wire) reports, "the new chairwoman said she does not expect her panel to hold a markup on any contributions to the climate bill."

Nonetheless, since Obama is on a seeming down swing, the media herd have been stampeding to write the obituary for the clean air, clean water, clean energy jobs bill. Hence the excitement over any potential bad news, as in the Politico's "Lincoln casts doubts on climate bill" or Newsweek's, "Musical Chairs in the Senate Present Worries for Enviros":

…. it will be in her political interest to hold up climate-change legislation until after the election. Environmentalists hoping the Senate will strengthen the House's Waxman-Markey bill should start readjusting their expectations.

The latter comes from the too aptly named blog of Newsweek's political reporters blog, "The Gaggle," which they define as "a flock of reporters pecking at a politician."

Note to Newsweek:

Why must you insist on framing this issue of paramount importance to all Americans, all humans in fact, as something only enviros care about?
I don't think any enviros were hoping the Senate will strengthen the bill significantly (certain not ones likely to read The Gaggle).
Small point, but it looks like you got the entire story wrong.

The NYT via CW has a much more detailed and savvier analysis of Lincoln's stance, which I'll excerpt, since she is a major swing vote:

The leadership shift on the Agriculture Committee may not significantly alter how the Senate deals with farm concerns in the climate bill, even though the new chairwoman is an outspoken critic of cap-and-trade legislation, senators and lobbyists said yesterday.

Senate Democrats yesterday placed Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) as the new head of the Agriculture Committee, the result of a leadership shuffle following last month's death of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). The agriculture panel is one of more than half a dozen committees in the Senate that could weigh in on global warming legislation this fall.

Lincoln brings a markedly different voice on climate and farmland conservation than the previous chairman, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Harkin stepped down from the farm committee's top spot yesterday to take over Kennedy's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Harkin, an enthusiastic supporter of programs that pay farmers for environmental conservation, said he would support cap-and-trade legislation, so long as it includes incentives for coal-based electric utilities and for farmers who want to participate in carbon offsets and conservation programs.

But Lincoln has expressed skepticism about Democratic efforts to pass a sweeping energy and climate bill. "It is not my preference to move on cap and trade this year," she said at an Agriculture Committee hearing on the issue yesterday.

Concerned that the cap-and-trade bill may increase costs for farmers too much, Lincoln recommended that the Senate instead take a more narrow approach with renewable energy legislation by taking up the energy bill the Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed this summer. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wants to pair the energy bill with cap-and-trade legislation.

Like Harkin, the new chairwoman said she does not expect her panel to hold a markup on any contributions to the climate bill. Rather, the committee may make recommendations to Sen. Barbara Boxer's (D-Calif.) Environment and Public Works Committee, which is expected to do the majority of the work on the bill. Lincoln also said she would be open to more hearings on the issue.

But even though Lincoln is much less enthusiastic than Harkin about cap-and-trade legislation, lawmakers and agriculture lobbyists still expect her to be active when farm members weigh in behind the scenes.

"Without a doubt there are opportunities for us to be able to make recommendations in terms of where we hope that the climate change bill or cap-and-trade bill that EPW is working on is going to go," Lincoln told reporters in a conference call yesterday.

And while Lincoln does not support the cap-and-trade bill now, the centrist Democrat was already a target for Boxer and other climate advocates courting votes on the measure. Advocates say Boxer would have needed to reach out to Lincoln regardless of her rank on the Agriculture Committee, in an effort to get the 60-vote majority needed to stop a filibuster and pass the bill.

"She has raised concerns about the overall bill, but at the same time, I think everyone recognizes that if we are going to pass a bill and get 60 votes, people like Blanche Lincoln need to get on board, and they need to make sure it works for them," said Jad Daley, director of the Climate Conservation Program for the Trust for Public Land.

"One way or another she was going to need to be a part of the 60 votes for the bill, this might put her in a position where she can have more input and feel like she can support the bill," Daley added.

Nate Silver's "Probability of Yes" vote for Lincoln was 41.6%, but as Frank O'Donnell, head of Clean Air Watch, notes, "If anything, she might be more sensitive to the leadership's priorities now that she's essentially one of the chieftains. She's no longer somebody in the pack."

For her part, Boxer brushed aside Lincoln's public opposition to the cap-and-trade bill. "She's such an expert on agriculture. It's great," Boxer said. "And I look forward to working with her on all of the issues, including climate."

… Lincoln has been far from consistent as the climate debate progressed over the last decade.

She voted in 2003 and 2005 against a cap-and-trade bill authored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Last year, Lincoln sided with Democratic leaders as another climate bill sputtered on the floor, though she quickly joined up with nine other moderate Democrats to detail a range of outstanding concerns that had not been addressed.

Lincoln in 2007 signed on as co-sponsor to Sen. Tom Carper's (D-Del.) legislation that would cap carbon dioxide emissions from power plants only. And she also teamed up that year with Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John Warner (R-Va.) on a bill that would track the prices for carbon dioxide in a new U.S. climate market and allow industries a flexible option if prices stay too high for too long (Greenwire, July 24, 2007).

"She has really made a careful study on the cost side of the ledger," said Scott Segal, an industry attorney at Bracewell & Guiliani. "That prepares her very well to pursue those objectives in the Senate Agriculture Committee."

Segal downplayed Lincoln's recent comments about the schedule for moving the bill. "The question of when to do climate change legislation is a tactical one that's related to a lot of competing agenda items," he said. "The real question we should be asking is what does the leader of the Agriculture Committee know about the substance."

Re-election fight

Lincoln's ascension to the top spot on the Agriculture Committee may provide a boost to her re-election hopes, though pundits say the impact of her new role may not be immediately apparent in the politically difficult climate.

Coming from a solidly Republican state, Lincoln has long been viewed as among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats heading into 2010 campaign. And recent polling indicates that the two-term senator is likely to face a fierce challenge next year, though at the moment there is no clear cut front-runner in the GOP field….

A late August Public Policy Polling (PPP) poll showed Lincoln trailing Baker, 42 percent to 40 percent; trailing Coleman 41 percent to 40 percent; and just ahead of Cotton, 41 percent to 39 percent. The dead heat in the polls comes even as voters acknowledged that they knew little about her GOP opponents.

The same poll also showed Lincoln's approval rating at 36 percent compared with 44 percent who disapprove of her performance — a double-digit shift since the same poll was conducted in March. The poll even shows tepid approval of Lincoln among Democrats, and she may face a primary challenge from state Sen. Bob Johnson.

Asked by reporters if she thought the chairmanship would help her chances in her re-election fight, Lincoln chirped: "I sure hope so."

USDA: Economic benefits of climate bill for farmers 'easily trump' the costs

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

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