Looks like this one has everything. Revenge of the Alpine Ice?
Month: May 2014
Katharine Hayhoe: How to Talk to Evangelicals About Climate
Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, newly minted member “Time’s 100 Most Influential People” club, in an interview with Chris Mooney – on how to talk to your evangelical friends and relatives about climate.
Full audio of Interview at link.
Chris Mooney in Mother Jones:
From our interview, here are five of Hayhoe’s top arguments, for evangelical Christians, on climate change:
1. Conservation is Conservative. The evangelical community isn’t just a religious community, it’s also a politically conservative one on average. So Hayhoe speaks directly to that value system. “What’s more conservative than conserving our natural resources, making sure we have enough for the future, and not wasting them like we are today?” she asks. “That’s a very conservative value.”
Indeed, many conservatives don’t buy into climate science because they don’t like the “Big Government” solutions they suspect the problem entails. But Hayhoe has an answer ready for that one too: Conservative-friendly, market-driven solutions to climate problems are actually all around us. “A couple of weeks ago, Texas…smashed the record for the most wind energy ever produced. It was 38 percent of our energy that week, came from wind,” she says. And Hayhoe thinks that’s just the beginning: “If you look at the map of where the greatest potential is for wind energy, it’s right up the red states. And I think that is going to make a big difference in the future.”
2. Yes, God Would Let This Happen. One conservative Christian argument is that God just wouldn’t let human activities ruin the creation. Or, as Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma has put it, “God’s still up there, and the arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what he is doing in the climate, is to me, outrageous.” You can watch Inhofe and other religious right politicians dismissing climate change on biblical grounds in this video:
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Sweet! Candy Maker Invests in Wind
Description:
Mars, Incorporated, in partnership with Sumitomo Corporation of Americas, announced an agreement on a new 200 MW wind farm that will generate 100% of the electricity needs of Mars’ U.S. operations, which is comprised of 70 sites.
‘Mesquite Creek Wind,’ a 118-turbine wind farm was jointly developed by Sumitomo and BNB Renewable Energy and is based near Lamesa, Texas with a footprint of 25,000 acres. With an annual output of over 800,000 megawatt-hours, the energy created from the wind farm will represent 24% of Mars’ total global factory and office carbon footprint.
Word on the Street: Coal is Dead
But then, technically, so are zombies.
The Supreme Court upheld Tuesday a 2011 federal rule governing the amount of air pollution some states can let drift across their borders into their downwind neighbors. The 6-2 ruling is a win for the Obama administration, which has leveraged executive powers to curb pollutants from the nation’s power sector. Under Tuesday’s ruling, some 28 Midwestern and Southern states will have to cut emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide from coal-fired power plants.
Supporters of the law cheered the ruling, saying it would protect millions of Americans from pollutants that have been linked to public-health issues. Critics of the White House’s climate action plan have likened it to a “war on coal,” threatening an industry that supplies about 40 percent of the nation’s electricity.
Coal’s outlook remains bright abroad, where it is largely fueling developing economies, and new technologies could make the world’s most polluting fuel a viable option in a low-carbon economy. But Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision is the latest in a series of blows to coal’s future in the United States, and foreshadows pending rules that would have an even greater impact on the industry.
After Heavy Rain, Afghan Landslide, Thousands Missing
Stuff happens.
But as this week’s retaining wall collapse in Baltimore shows, stuff happens a lot more frequently when you push it with weather extremes.
Rescuers in Afghanistan are sifting through mud for a second day after a landslide that is feared to have buried at least 2,000 people.
The UN said more than 350 bodies had been recovered in the remote north-east Afghan province of Badakhshan.
Hundreds of homes were buried on Friday when a section of a mountain collapsed following torrential rain. A second landslide then followed, killing the rescuers who had rushed in to help dig people out.
Local police handed out bread and water to the thousands of people who spent the night without shelter. Much of north and east Afghanistan has been hit by heavy rain in recent days.
‘Mass grave’
The provincial governor and UN officials told the BBC that more than 2,000 people were missing, feared dead.
The tragic landslide in Argo District of Badakhshan Province, NE Afghanistan yesterday is now believed to have killed at least 350 people, making it the worst landslide of 2014 to date. The best coverage has come from the Twitter account of a BBC correspondent, Bilal Sarwary, who has tweeted a number of images of the slide and the village. These are the best two to date, showing first the Badakhshan landslide itself – above and below.
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The Weekend Wonk: Gavin Schmidt on Climate Models
Nice 12 minute TED talk on the uses of climate modeling, by NASA’s Gavin Schmidt.
We are developing a group of climate scientist communicators who are really polished, passionate, and skilled. This is a good development. Michael Mann, Jeff Masters, and now Gavin Schmidt are in the forefront of this trend.
Coal Plants Toppling in China
Question is, are they just removing the most visible installations, and moving the coal generation to rural areas?
China added nearly 40 per cent less coal- and gas-fired power capacity in the first quarter than it did a year ago mainly due to stronger pollution controls and slower economic growth, a senior government advisor said on Wednesday.
China, the biggest global emitter of gases that cause climate change and plagued by air quality that causes half a million deaths a year, consumes nearly half the world’s coal.
But recent data released by the National Energy Administration (NEA) showed that newly installed coal and gas power capacity in China fell 38.9 per cent in the first quarter compared to the same period last year, a sign that the share of fossil fuels in the energy mix are slowly coming down.
New renewable energy and nuclear capacity grew in the same period. Since the beginning of last year, non-fossil fuels have accounted for nearly 60 per cent of new power capacity.
“The reduction in coal-fired capacity is due to the economic slowdown,” Li Junfeng, director general at government think-tank the National Center of Climate Change Strategy, told Reuters.
“But the reduction is also a result of the crackdown on air pollution,” Li told Reuters.
Devastating Flooding Across South: Notice a Pattern here?
Below – see my video interviews with scientists on extreme weather, compare to ever-more-monotonous headlines.
A rare and extreme weather pattern has produced obscene and devastating amounts of rainfall from Mobile, Alabama to Pensacola, Florida. Up to 2 feet of rain fell in the last 24 hours in isolated locations in this region.
Pensacola and Mobile both officially received over 11 inches of rain, the third highest daily totals dating back over 130 years, according to Capital_Climate on Twitter.
Tornadoes have a tendency to grab the headlines, but the torrential rains that can accompany severe storms can do just as much damage or worse, as photos of washed out roadways and homes from Pensacola, Fla., and Mobile, Ala., have made clear. And as Earth’s temperature warms and its climate changes unabated, these kinds of extreme precipitation events are on the rise.
The same widespread storm system that set tornadoes spinning across the landscape from Arkansas to North Carolina this week also deluged the Gulf Coast from Mobile to Pensacolawith more rain falling in a single day than both locations usually see in March and April combined. An estimated 10 to 15 inches of rain fell in the area in just 24 hours, with rates in Pensacola at one point on Tuesday night reaching an incredible 6 inches in one hour.
The atmosphere over the area was soaked with moisture, which the storm system pulled from over the warm Gulf of Mexico, fueling the barrage of rain. It is this very issue that will cause more such heavy downpours in the future.
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Rain Saturated Street Collapse in Baltimore
Watch the video, make sure you catch the last 30 seconds.
When crumbling infrastructure meets climate and weather extremes. Since Congress cares about neither one, look for more of this.
The heaviest rain has ended in the Northeast, but investigators and cleanup crews continue to deal with landslides in two separate states.
The largest of the two happened in Baltimore’s busy Charles Village neighborhood Wednesday, when a retaining wall buckled on 26th Street, sending cars and mud tumbling 75 feet onto CSX railroad tracks.
Neighbor Dana Moore watched it happen.
“It was there and then it wasn’t,” she told the Baltimore Sun.
No one was injured but homes were evacuated so investigators could assess the area’s stability. Structural engineers placed markers along the road to monitor conditions.
DOT and the Baltimore City Fire Department continued to remove more vehicles and debris Thursday.
Climate and National Security with Admiral David Titley
We need to step up: And top naval commanders, such as retired Navy Rear Adm. David Titley, think it’s important for the military to meet the challenges of global climate change. The former admiral told Slate‘s Eric Holthaus that the military establishment thinks it’s one of the biggest long-term planning issues that needs to be handled.
“Climate change did not cause the Arab spring, but could it have been a contributing factor? I think that seems pretty reasonable,” Titley comments.
“Let me give you a few examples of how [climate change] might play out … [Here’s one:] We basically do nothing on emissions. Sea level keeps rising, three to six feet by the end of the century. Then, you get a series of super-typhoons into Shanghai and millions of people die. Does the population there lose faith in Chinese government? Does China start to fissure? I’d prefer to deal with a rising, dominant China any day.”
Recognize: Titley also has a few choice words for the majority of Americans who aren’t concerned about climate change — which is about 65% of the country — saying they’re being misled by a “libertarian agenda that tried to convince the public the science was uncertain.”
“Where are the free-market, conservative ideas?” he asks. “The science is settled. Instead, we should have a legitimate policy debate between the center-right and the center-left on what to do about climate change. If you’re a conservative — half of America — why would you take yourself out of the debate? C’mon, don’t be stupid. Conservative people want to conserve things. Preserving the climate should be high on that list.”
Below, excerpt from a TED talk by then Chief Oceanographer of the US Navy, Admiral David Titley.
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