In DC for a Dark Snow Project press event last week – I had the chance to spend some time with Joe Romm – easily the most widely read, influential, knowledgable, and important blogger on the internet for issues of climate and energy.
Joe’s Climate Progress sets the standard for green journalists, and the agenda for climate activists, and any of us involved in this work owe a great debt to Joe’s work in this area. I was curious, at this obviously pivotal moment, what the view from one of the most well-informed insiders I can think of might be.
Joe was able to break for a few moments and chat with me in the the nerve center/man-cave of his NW DC home. We talked for some time about Obama, climate, keystone, and our kids, as well as Joe’s great new book.
OK, we can argue about Natural gas as being totally good news. I’m not convinced that “lower emissions” takes into account possible methane leaks from natural gas fracking fields. But my take-away here is that transformation is happening now, efficiency is up, renewable prices are down, coal, in the US at least, is in full retreat.
The reduction in climate pollution – even as Congress failed to act on climate change – brings America more than halfway towards Barack Obama’s target of cutting emissions by 17% from 2005 levels over the next decade, the Bloomberg analysts said.
By the end of last year, America’s emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions had fallen 10.7% from the 2005 baselines.
That drop puts Obama in a better position to defend his environmental achievements, which have often gone overlooked in the bitter rows over climate science.
It may also buoy up America’s standing in the global climate negotiations.
SYNOPSIS: Many children in Fukushima were never evacuated after the nuclear meltdown on March 11, 2011. Now the number of Fukushima children found to have thyroid cysts and nodules is increasing. (“A2” designates thyroids with cysts)
This would have been my Dad’s birthday.
He was once Chairman of the Republican party in this county – an influential one in the state. He’d be horrified, sick, and fascinated by what we are seeing from that quarter today.
Which leads to my next question.
If we’re already having july-in-january thunderstorms in Michigan, can there really be 6 more weeks of winter?
With the non-winter we’ve had here on the East Coast, this year, Punxsutawney Phil could not have done his job right no matter what the little guy predicted. “This is the most philosophically perplexing Groundhog Day ever,” noted CNBC’s John Carney. This year, our furry meteorologist “saw his shadow,” meaning six more weeks of winter. But, what does that mean when the winter hasn’t happened? We can’t have six more weeks of something we haven’t had. Perhaps six more weeks of non-winter is ahead. “Six more weeks of winter would imply there has been one in the first place,” adds @globeandmail. Groundhog Day has become a paradox. Phil can’t have the right answer, making his job basically obsolete.
This isn’t about right or wrong, it’s about the ability to be right or wrong. Historically, our groundhog hasn’t correctly predicted winter’s final stretch, with about a 40 percent success rate,according to The National Climate Data Center. Of course, this isn’t science, it’s tradition, but, with the erratic seasons, he can only fail, making the tradition a lot less meaningful.
Climate change is what’s making things difficult for Phil. Even the Union of Concerned Scientists suggested we move Groundhog Day to earlier in the winter.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania has announced that Groundhog Day will be pushed forward eight days to January 25 in 2012 in recognition of the impact climate change has had in the region.
Ok, so this was an April Fool’s day Joke. But still, it’s a joke that could save Phil’s job. “If Punxawhatever Phil is paying attention to the data (which would put him well ahead of your average Congressman), he knows the average northeast winter is 2 weeks shorter than it used to be,” journalist and environmentalist Bill McKibben told The Atlantic Wire, directing us to varioussites that confirm Phil’s possible fate. Like a lot of Americans these days, we bet Phil would like very much to hold on to his job during these wintery—though spring-like—economic times.
I want to conclude by making a few observations about the importance of the Department of Energy missions to our economic prosperity, dependency on foreign oil and climate change.
The United States spent roughly $430 billion dollars on foreign oil in 2012. This is a direct wealth transfer out of our country. Many billions more are spent to keep oil shipping lanes open and oil geo-politics add considerable additional burdens. Although our oil imports are projected to fall to a 25 year low next year, we still pay a heavy economic, national security and human cost for our oil addiction.
The average temperature of our planet is rising, with majority of the temperature increase occurring in the last thirty years. During the three decades from 1980 to 2011, the number of violent storms, floods, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, as tabulated by the reinsurance company Munich Re, has increased more than three-fold. They also estimate that the financial losses follow a trend line that has gone from $40 billion to $170 billion dollars per year. Most of those losses were not insured, and the country suffering the largest losses by far is the United States. As the President said in his recent Inaugural Address, “some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.”
The overwhelming scientific consensus is that human activity has had a significant and likely dominant role in climate change. There is also increasingly compelling evidence that the weather changes we have witnessed during this thirty year time period are due to climate change.
Virtually all of the other OECD countries, and most developing countries including China, India, Mexico, and Brazil have accepted the judgment of climate scientists.
Many countries, but most notably China, realize that the development of clean energy technologies presents an incredible economic opportunity in an emerging world market. China now exceeds the U.S. in internal deployment of clean energy and in government investments to further develop the technologies.
While we cannot accurately predict the course of climate change in the coming decades, the risks we run if we don’t change our course are enormous. Prudent risk management does not equate uncertainty with inaction.
Our ability to find and extract fossil fuels continues to improve, and economically recoverable reservoirs around the world are likely to keep pace with the rising demand for decades. As the saying goes, the Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones; we transitioned to better solutions.
The same opportunity lies before us with energy efficiency and clean energy. The cost of renewable energy is rapidly becoming competitive with other sources of energy, and the Department has played a significant role in accelerating the transition to affordable, accessible and sustainable energy.
Ultimately we have a moral responsibility to the most innocent victims of adverse climate change. Those who will suffer the most are the people who are the most innocent: the world’s poorest citizens and those yet to be born. There is an ancient Native American saying: “We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” A few short decades later, we don’t want our children to ask, “What were our parents thinking? Didn’t they care about us?”
App of the Year. I just started playing with this, but it looks like fun. Bring it with you next time you attend a creationist/climate denialist cocktail party.
Have you ever wanted to go back in time to see what the Earth looked like 400 million years ago? You can with the EarthViewer, a free, interactive app designed for the iPad, that lets users explore the Earth’s history with the touch of a finger by scrolling through 4.5 billion years of geological evolution.
The app, developed by HHMI’s BioInteractive team, tracks the planet’s continental shifts, compares changes in climate as far back as the planet’s origin, and explores the Earth’s biodiversity over the last 540 million years. It combines visual analysis with hard data, and helps students make connections between geological and biological change.
The modern timeline includes 100 years of NASA temperature data. Track the warming of high latitudes over the past 20 years
“We’re very interested in how the app can be used in formal education. Scientific concepts can be more fully appreciated when students are given a chance to explore the Earth in such a visual way,” said Dennis Liu, Ph.D., Director of Educational Resources at HHMI.
Liu said that interactive computer-based simulations are being developed and used with growing frequency in many science-education disciplines. His team previewed the app with teachers and professors during its development phase, and received a very positive response.
“The college and high school educators, as well as the geology researchers who’ve seen the beta version of EarthViewer, can’t wait to get their hands on it,” he said.
An in-depth guide to the greenhouse effect. Earth is only habitable because the atmosphere’s ability to trap heat.
I’ll be looking for the “Conservapedia” version, with Noah’s Ark and the Flood.
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu (born 1970) is an Indigenous Australian musician, who sings in the Yolngu language.
He was born in Galiwin’ku (Elcho Island), off the coast of Arnhem Land, Northern Australia about 580 kilometres from Darwin. He is from the Gumatj clan of the Yolngu and his mother from the Galpu nation.[1] He was born blind, has never learned Braille and does not have a guide dog or use a white cane. Yunupingu speaks only a few words of English, and is said to be acutely shy.[2]
He plays drums, keyboards, guitar (a right hand-strung guitar left-handed) and didgeridoo, but it is the clarity of his singing voice that has attracted rave reviews. He sings stories of his land in both languages (Gälpu, Gumatj or Djambarrpuynu, all Yolŋu Matha) and English.[3] Formerly with Yothu Yindi, he is now with Saltwater Band.
In DC for a Dark Snow Project press event last week – I had the chance to spend some time with Joe Romm – easily the most widely read, influential, knowledgable, and important blogger on the internet for issues of climate and energy.
