One of the distinguished experts we interviewed this week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco was Peter Doran, a well known Antarctic researcher from the University of Illinois. Dr. Doran described how his lengthy stays in the dry valleys of Antarctica can help us better understand how life may have, at one time, existed on Mars.
Dr. Doran discusses here the way his work has been misused by the climate denial community, including everyone from “crazy Uncle Bob” to, famously, the late novelist Michael Crichton. Doran’s article refuting Crichton in the New York Times is must reading for everyone’s crazy uncle Bob.
Our results have been misused as “evidence” against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel “State of Fear” and by Ann Coulter in her latest book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.” Search my name on the Web, and you will find pages of links to everything from climate discussion groups to Senate policy committee documents — all citing my 2002 study as reason to doubt that the earth is warming. One recent Web column even put words in my mouth. I have never said that “the unexpected colder climate in Antarctica may possibly be signaling a lessening of the current global warming cycle.” I have never thought such a thing either.
Glaciologist Peter Doran
Our study did find that 58 percent of Antarctica cooled from 1966 to 2000. But during that period, the rest of the continent was warming. And climate models created since our paper was published have suggested a link between the lack of significant warming in Antarctica and the ozone hole over that continent. These models, conspicuously missing from the warming-skeptic literature, suggest that as the ozone hole heals — thanks to worldwide bans on ozone-destroying chemicals — all of Antarctica is likely to warm with the rest of the planet. An inconvenient truth? Continue reading “The Weekend Wonk: Glaciologist Peter Doran on Michael Crichton and Crazy Uncle Bob”
I’m working with John Cook of Skeptical Science blog, and Collin Maessen of Real Skeptic, interviewing an amazing list of some of the most productive researchers in the most critical areas of climate science.
We’ve been completely bowled over by the energy the subjects have brought to this project. Everyone has been on their “A” game.
Lonnie Thompson, above, makes a pretty good example.
In his 70s, with a new heart transplant, Dr. Thompson has just returned from his 58th(!) trip to New Guinea glaciers, where he was working at the 20,000 foot level with his team, gathering records from rapidly vanishing tropical glaciers that will soon be gone. The only records we will ever have.
Dr. Thompson described the urgency of the problem, as tropical glaciers disappear, of maintaining water supplies to populations that have depended on them for millennia.
Katharine Hayhoe
I first interviewed Katharine Hayhoe a few years ago, shortly after she had come under attack by right wing radio shouter Rush Limbaugh as a “climate babe”.
Since then, she has been named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, for her outreach, as a scientist, to her fellow Christian evangelicals.
Eric Rignot
Dr. Eric Rignot is a glaciologist, highly esteemed in his community, working for NASA Jet Propulsion Lab.
His study last spring stunned the world with the confirmation that huge sections of the Antarctic Ice Sheet are now committed to collapsing into the sea, the only question being, how long it will take – an issue I covered in my video below.
In the spring and summer of 2014, Earth’s icy northern region lost more of its signature whiteness that reflects the sun’s heat. It was replaced temporarily with dark land and water that absorbs more energy, keeping yet more heat on already warming planet, according to the Arctic report card issued Thursday.
Spring snow cover in Eurasia reached a record low in April. Arctic summer sea ice, while not setting a new record, continued a long-term, steady decline. And Greenland set a record in August for the least amount of sunlight reflected in that month, said the peer-reviewed report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies.
Overall, the report card written by 63 scientists from 13 countries shows few single-year dramatic changes, unlike other years.
“We can’t expect records every year. It need not be spectacular for the Arctic to continue to be changing,” said report lead editor Martin Jeffries, an Arctic scientist for the Office of Naval Research, at a San Francisco news conference Wednesday.
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The Arctic’s drop in reflectivity is crucial because “it plays a role like a thermostat in regulating global climate,” Jeffries said, in an interview. As the bright areas are replaced, even temporarily, with dark heat-absorbing dark areas, “That has global implications.”
The world’s thermostat setting gets nudged up a bit because more heat is being absorbed instead of reflected, he said.
For those of us fixated on whether 2014 will be the hottest year on record, the results are in. At least, we know enough that we can make the call. According theglobal data from NOAA, 2014 will be the hottest year ever recorded.
I can make this pronouncement even before the end of the year because each month, I collect daily global average temperatures. So far, December is running about 0.5°C above the average. The climate and weather models predict that the next week will be about 0.75°C above average. This means, December will come in around 0.6°C above average. Are these daily values accurate? Well the last two months they have been within 0.05°C of the final official results.
What does this all mean? Well, when I combine December with the year-to-date as officially reported, I predict the annual temperature anomaly will be 0.674°C. This beats the prior record by 0.024°C. That is a big margin in terms of global temperatures.
For those of us who are not fixated on whether any individual year is a record but are more concerned with trends, this year is still important. Particularly because according to those who deny the basic physics and our understanding of climate change, this year wasn’t supposed to be particularly warm.
For those who thought that climate change was “natural” and driven by ocean currents, this has been a tough year. For instance, using NOAA standards, this year didn’t even have an El Niño. NOAA defines an El Niño as 5 continuous/overlapping 3-month time periods wherein a particular region in the Pacific has temperatures elevated more than 0.5oC.
NOAA is more cautious, but with most of December behind us, an announcement seems imminent.
With November’s temperature numbers in the books, 2014 is on track to be the hottest year ever recorded, newly released data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show.
During the month, the patterns that have been in place for much of the year held fast: While the eastern U.S. was plunged into a deep freeze, the world as a whole continued warming, fueled by the rise of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Existing computer models may be severely underestimating the risk to Greenland’s ice sheet — which would add 20 feet to sea levels if it all melted — from warming temperatures, according to two studies released Monday.
Satellite data were instrumental for both studies — one which concludes that Greenland is likely to see many more lakes that speed up melt, and the other which better tracks large glaciers all around Earth’s largest island.
The lakes study, published in the peer-reviewed Nature Climate Change, found that what are called “supraglacial lakes” have been migrating inland since the 1970s as temperatures warm, and could double on Greenland by 2060.
The study upends models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change because they “didn’t allow for lake spreading, so the work has to be done again,” study co-author Andrew Shepherd, director of Britain’s Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, told NBCNews.com.
Those lakes can speed up ice loss since, being darker than the white ice, they can absorb more of the sun’s heat and cause melting. The melt itself creates channels through the ice sheet to weaken it further, sending ice off the sheet and into the ocean.
“When you pour pancake batter into a pan, if it rushes quickly to the edges of the pan, you end up with a thin pancake,” study lead author Amber Leeson, a researcher at Britain’s University of Leeds, explained in a statement. “It’s similar to what happens with ice sheets: The faster it flows, the thinner it will be.
“When the ice sheet is thinner,” she added, “it is at a slightly lower elevation and at the mercy of warmer air temperatures than it would have been if it were thicker, increasing the size of the melt zone around the edge of the ice sheet.”
From the paper:
Our study demonstrates that (supra glacial lakes) large enough to drain will in fact spread far into the ice-sheet interior as climate warms, which suggests that projections of the ice-sheet dynamical imbalance should be revised to account for the expected evolution in their distribution. Establishing the degree to which the inland spread of SGLs will affect future ice-sheet motion is now a matter of considerable concern.
The US/China climate agreement is a game changer, for a lot of reasons. Below, some analysis from Climate Progress. Above, my video on the subject, probably the first of several.
One aspect that has not been well explored in the media, is that this is a deal that China needs – not because they want to score PR points, not because they want to look like a responsible world power, and not even, primarily, because they are all that concerned about climate change (although, increasingly, they are..)
They need to change the course they are on because the breakneck development of fossil fuels has put them on a collision course with some very, very hard physical limits – in particular, water. In addition, they are looking at pollution problems that have become so severe, they are now a primary source of political unrest. And this generation of Chinese leaders remembers how rough things can get in China in a period of unrest.
For the video above, I sampled the media sphere for pieces of the narrative, as usual, and I interviewed Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute, one of the world’s best recognized experts on water resources, and Keith Schneider, a long time New York Times writer, currently global correspondent for Circle of Blue, an NGO dealing in the nexus of water, climate and energy.
“Renewable and nuclear energy accounted for 9.8 percent of China’s energy mix in 2013,” said Melanie Hart, the Director for China Policy at the Center for American Progress. “They have just promised to double that by 2030. That target will light a fire under China’s already-aggressive renewable deployments and put even stronger limits on coal and other fossil-fuels.”
Experts did tell Reuters that the emission reductions China needs to meet this deal are not too far off from the course it’s already projected to maintain. That said, the Chinese government and its officials haveraised the peak goal as a possibility before, but coming from Jinping himself, Wednesday’s deal constitutes the most robust commitment China has ever made.
“It’s the agreement that people have been waiting for, for a long time,”said Jake Schmidt, director of the International Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “It’s the two biggest emitters, the two largest economies, the two biggest drags on agreement over the years. For them to step up and say we’re going to take deep actions, it will send a powerful signal to countries around the word.”
Republicans and other skeptics of climate policy have longpointed to China’s reluctance to cut its emissions as a reason the U.S. should not bother either.
But the President has argued that as the world’s second-largest emitter currently, and by far its largest historically, the U.S. cannot expect other countries to act if it does not demonstrate good faith by stepping forward. Hence the suite of executive actions Obama announced in his second term to cut U.S. emissions, with the Environmental Protection Agency’s recently rule for power plants as its centerpiece. As such, Wednesday’s deal also marks an at least partial vindication of Obama’s strategy.
The Chinese government announced Wednesday it would cap coal use by 2020. The Chinese State Council, or cabinet, said the peak would be 4.2 billion tonnes, a one-sixth increase over current consumption.
This is a staggering reversal of Chinese energy policy, which for two decades has been centered around building a coal plant or more a week. Now they’ll be building the equivalent in carbon-free power every week for decades, while the construction rate of new coal plants decelerates like a crash-test dummy.
The 2020 coal peak utterly refutes the GOP claim that China’s recent climate pledge “requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years.” Indeed, independent analyses make clear a 2020 coal peak announcement was the inevitable outcome of China’s game-changing climate deal deal with the U.S. last week, where China agreed to peak its total carbon pollution emissions in 2030 — or earlier.
We already knew that China’s energy commitment to “increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20% by 2030” was going to require a staggering rate of deployment for carbon free energy. It means adding some 800-1,000 gigawatts of zero-carbon power in 16 years, which, the White House notes, is “more than all the coal-fired power plants that exist in China today and close to total current electricity generation capacity in the United States.”
Newly emboldened, if not empowered, by the election results, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is planning an even more aggressive war on sane environmental regulations, in fact, on any regulations, of any kind, that might impinge in any way, on anyone who does anything evil, anywhere, for the rest of time.
So, why are there companies that still support ALEC? A slew of high flying tech companies fled a few months ago, following the gigantic climate march in New York.
Above, Google’s Eric Schmidt in his “They’re just lying” interview on the Diane Rheam show, the day after the New York demonstration – coincidentally I am sure..
In August, Microsoft announced that it’d be severing ties with ALEC, citing its opposition to renewable energy projects; in September, Google chairman Eric Schmidt said his company would be leaving as well, in part because ALEC is “just literally lying” about climate change (the group tried, and totally failed, to reform its stance). But despite the tech exodus that followed — Facebook, Yahoo and Yelp are no longer ALEC-affiliated — the group is sure to be buoyed by the favorable results of the midterm elections, Nick Surgey, of the Center for Media and Democracy, told reporters during a press call Wednesday.
And according to Aliya Haq, the climate change special projects director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, it ”will actually be escalating its attacks on environmental safeguards.”
The “most extreme” proposal getting attention at this week’s conference, according to the NRDC, is a plan to have Congress disband the EPA, slash funding for environmental protections by 75 percent and replace the federal agency with a group of 300 state agency employees — even though the entire point of having the EPA is because pollution extends beyond state boundaries.
Thanks to pressure from shareholders, unions and public interest organizations, more than 90 companies have severed ties with ALEC since 2012, according to the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), which tracks the secretive group’s activities on its ALEC Exposed website. The list of deserters comprises a veritable Who’s Who of U.S. business, including Amazon, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, General Electric, General Motors, IBM, Kraft, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart. And in the days following Schmidt’s denunciation of ALEC for “making the world a much worse place,” other Internet companies headed for the exits. Yahoo cancelled its membership, Facebook said it was unlikely it would renew next year, and Yelp divulged it was no longer a member.
Since its inception in 1973, ALEC—which currently boasts more than 1,800 state legislators and nearly 300 corporations, trade associations, corporate law firms and nonprofits as members—has been promoting model state legislation on a range of issues, from “stand your ground” laws to privatizing prisons to worker rights. Nearly 98 percent of the group’s funding comes from its corporate sector members, which pay annual dues of $7,000 to $25,000. Those fees grant them direct access to ALEC legislators—who each pay a token $50 a year—and the opportunity to ghostwrite sample bills that serve as templates for statehouses across the country.
ALEC also lost a few energy sector members over the last two years, notably ConocoPhillips, Entergy, Xcel Energy and, in the wake of Schmidt’s outburst, Occidental Petroleum. But roughly 30 fossil fuel companies and trade associations—including BP America, Chevron, Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, Peabody Energy and Shell — are still steadfast supporters.
Two of the companies—ExxonMobil and Koch Industries—are so gung ho that they’ve been kicking in significantly more than the annual fee. ExxonMobil donated $942,500 to ALEC over the last decade, while Koch family foundations gave $747,000 between 2007 and 2012. On top of that, the oil and gas industry’s premier trade association, the American Petroleum Institute, contributed $88,000 between 2008 and 2010.
Given this support, it’s not surprising that ALEC’s sample bills would, among other things, impede government oversight on fracking, undermine regional cap-and-trade climate pacts and introduce climate misinformation in school curricula. Last year, according to CMD estimates, ALEC sponsored more than 75 energy bills in 34 states. Thirteen of those bills, if enacted, would have frozen, rolled back or repealed state standards requiring electric utilities to increase their use of renewable energy. Fortunately, all 13 went down in defeat.
What is surprising is five of the seven ALEC energy behemoths I listed above—all but Koch Industries and Peabody Energy—publicly acknowledge the threat posed by climate change on their respective websites and claim to be doing something about it.
BP, for example, states that the company “believes that climate change is an important long-term issue that justifies global action.” Chevron says “taking prudent, practical and cost-effective action to address climate change risks is the right thing to do.”
Here, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson acknowledges the reality of human caused climate change:
Selma is a new movie about the civil rights movement, and Dr. Martin Luther King’s leadership role.
It’s relevant to a climate change blog, because the movement to free black people, first from slavery, then from segregation, is a close parallel to the movement against the climate crisis. Both movements had important leaders from the faith community, and both movements faced bitter opposition from powerful interests, many of them based in the US South, the old confederacy. And like the struggle against slavery, those powerful interests are being told they must relinquish a primary source of their wealth – in this case, enormous stores of carbon fuels, energy “slaves” that must stay in the ground for humanity to survive.
Pundits today still ask the question “What Happened to Kansas?” – the conundrum of how poor and middle class white people can be consistently motivated to vote against their own interests. But this is, of course, the oldest game in the political playbook – resentment politics.
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
Bob Dylan, Only a Pawn in Their Game
In this case, the Strom Thurmonds and Lester Maddox’s of the fossil fuel interests attempt to frame the issue as a battle of good, normal, white Americans against “UN scientists” (“UN” is always a dog whistle, meaning, those brown skinned furriners who want to tell you what to do – pay attention and you’ll see how often this card is played), “Hollywood elitists” – see Senator James Inhofe’s recent rant against Barbara Streisand, and of course, pot-smoking, tree-hugging hippies.
Polls show that people of color consistently register more concern about the climate than whites in America. As in the civil rights movement, the climate movement is reaching a number of middle class whites, as their churches point to the moral dimension of the struggle.
Catholic bishops from around the world are calling for an end to fossil fuel use and increased efforts to secure a global climate treaty.
Catholics, they say, should engage with the process leading to a proposed new deal to be signed in Paris next year.
The statement is the first time that senior church figures from every continent have issued such a call.
The bishops say this is necessary “in order to protect frontline communities suffering from the impacts of climate change, such as those in the Pacific Islands and in the coastal regions.”
As well as calling for the phasing in of 100% renewable energy, there is a strong focus on finance for adaptation in the statement.
MN: Why is it important for the clergy to have a voice in this discussion? JMM: The African American church has historically served as a moral leader on the most pressing issues of our time—from voting rights to gun violence. The church isn’t going to now sit aside and watch as polluters jeopardize the health and safety of our children and grandchildren.
Climate change not only imperils the most marvelous natural features of God’s creation, it threatens to cause human suffering of a magnitude that we cannot tolerate. Worldwide, we are facing severe drought, famine, disease, and disasters as a result of our climate crisis.
MN: What are some next steps? JMM: One action on the near horizon that we’re asking folks to take is to send a comment to the Environmental Protection Agency letting them know they support strong carbon pollution safeguards. These carbon safeguards would go a long way to fighting climate change and protecting our communities. You can find out more at www.epa.gov.
MN: What impact do these church leaders see the environment (particularly environmental degradation) having on their congregations and communities? JMM: Many of these churches are already working on environmental issues just as part of the day-to-day job of the church to make sure congregants are healthy and not being poisoned. Those struggles are related to the industries that are driving climate change and they understand that connection.
We had representation from a church in Richmond, CA that has struggled with pollution from the Chevron oil refinery. We had a pastor from a church in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood, which has a number of Superfund sites from the old navy shipyards. There have been a number of environmental justice issues there for years. While climate change and carbon pollution hurt everyone, the communities that many of these churches serve shoulder the greatest burden. Seventy-eight percent of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant. Black children have an 80 percent higher rate of asthma than their White peers, and are more than three times more likely to die of the disease.
It’s probably the closest thing the coal industry will ever get to actually receiving the word of a god – or rather, a note from several gods as well as other various prophets, spiritual leaders and the like.
Last month religious leaders representing Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and a couple of Christian denominations published an open letter calling for world leaders to “commit to a rapid transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy” to avoid “climate-related disasters”.
