Month: December 2014

The piece above has gone viral – it’s Aaron Sorkin’s overly gloomy “it’s all over, why bother” take on climate change.
I maintain it’s the lazy way, – just as toxic, and wrong, as ‘it’s all a plot, there is no warming”.

It’s gotten enough traction that Climate Desk has done some fact checking, and Mike Mann was asked about it in a recent radio interview, excerpted below.

James West in Mother Jones:

The scene is odd for a number of reasons. The Newsroom packages its drama based on last year’s events, and at that time, the news that the world was approaching 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had been publicly anticipated for weeks. So, not a scoop in any way, or anything that anyone following the science didn’t already know.

But putting that aside, let’s take a look at Sorkin’s “facts”, as presented in the episode. How do they measure up? Let’s go line-by-line through the scene above.

In the weird parallel universe of TheNewsroom, I’m not sure when these “latest measurements” were meant to have been taken. But he’s right. We covered this at the time: The world passed that 400 ppm threshold for the first meaningful way in May 2013, when the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide was higher than at any time in human history, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The measurements are indeed taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii; you can follow what’s known as the “Keeling Curve”—a measurement of atmospheric concentration of CO2—on Twitter, naturally, thanks to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Depends what you’re defining as catastrophic failure, I suppose.  Say you were born last year, when I assume this episode was meant to be set. If we follow along current emissions trends, the planet will be 3.96°F-8.64°F (2.2°C–4.8°C) hotter than preindustrial times by your retirement. (You can type your birth year into this cool interactive, driven by data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to check how hot it will be when you’re old). That’s above temperatures recommended to be in the supposedly “safe” zone by the IPCC, and could definitely result in a variety of “catastrophes” and “failures”. As deaths increase due to things like extreme weather, droughts and wildfires, this statement seems true enough when applied to individual episodes of calamity, which will surely increase. (The number of annual deaths in the UK due to heat, for example, is predicted to rise by 257 per cent by 2050.) The EPA official is right, in one sense. But it’s also arguable that deaths are already and will continue to be linked to climate change events. The line in the script infers the failure of the planet as a whole, which I think is artful flourish to illustrate just how glum this fellow is feeling.

In addition to the Mother Jones piece, Dr. Michael Mann appeared on the “Brad Blog” radio show, and answered questions about the “Newsroom” piece.

Continue reading “Glum and Glummer? Or is There a Glimmer? Fact-Checking “The Newsroom”.”

The Coal industry, thankfully, is starting to feel a little of what it might be like to be a black lung victim.
Not dead yet, but gasping, smothering, and flailing.  Note the contrasts linked below.
Above, what amounts to an absolutely astounding, nauseating info-mercial for coal on MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough show – complete with “God put these resources here for us to use”, a soaring eagle, cute kids, and “we like to give back to the community”.

I’ll understand if you have to pause and throw up.

Below, a series of reality checks on what is really happening out there.

Carbon Brief:

German energy company E.ON yesterday announced it was splitting the company in two, “spinning off” its fossil fuel assets. The reason for the move? The European energy market’s trend towards low carbon energy sources and services, and the ever decreasing profitability of fossil fuels, it says.

The move is being hailed as a “watershed moment” for Germany’s ambitious efforts to decarbonise its energy sector.

But why does E.ON think its new model is more profitable? And why aren’t all energy companies doing the same?

Energy transformation

E.ON’s decision to restructure has more to do with a need to do something about its bottom line than environmental concerns. E.ON’s profits fell by 20 per cent over the last 12 months, continuing a long term decline.

That was partly as a consequence of Germany’s ambitious climate and energy policies, known as the Energiewende. Germany aims to get 80 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050. Currently, it gets about 30 per cent, up from about 15 per cent when the Energiewende was announced in 2010.

Renewables’ rapid expansion has made the wholesale cost of electricity plummet, and put many of Germany’s big utility companies with large stakes in fossil fuels under severe financial pressure.

The German government is also pressing ahead with a plan to phase out nuclear power by 2022. That’s bad news for E.ON, which has a stake in 11 of the country’s nuclear plants.

So E.ON decided to split in two. One part of the company, which will keep the name and branding, will focus on renewables, distributing power, and providing energy efficiency services. The other part will keep E.ON’s non-renewable power plants, and will make new investments in exploring and producing fossil fuels.

Ecowatch:

How about making utility consumers pay to subsidize costly aging coal plants? Check! That’s precisely what three big Ohio utility companies want to do. Columbus-based American Electric Power (AEP), Cincinnati-based Duke Energy and Akron-based FirstEnergy have asked the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) to let them raise rates to cover the cost of keeping these obsolete, polluting facilities in use. In essence, they want customers to guarantee a continuing flow of income for old, inefficient coal-fired plants. This despite the fact that a Public Policy Polling survey in August found  that 56 percent of those polled felt Ohio should be investing in renewable energy sources vs. 36 percent who felt the investment should be in traditional energy sources.

“These monopoly utilities are trying to ditch free market principles and make Ohio electricity customers pay for outdated, polluting, dead-end coal plants,” said Allison Fisher of consumer organization Public Citizen. “Coal is becoming less and less competitive, and it’s unfair to force Ohioans to pay for something they don’t want.”

Luckily, the Sierra Club has just relaunched its “No Coal Bailouts” campaign in the state, throwing some muscle behind the thousands of petitions and letters PUCO has already received, including a letter from 12 big businesses such as Lowe’s, Costco, Macy’s and Staples, calling the proposal “unfair to shopping customers and harmful to competitive markets.”

To prod consumer awareness of what they could be asked to pay for, Sierra Club is launching a new fusillade of ads exposing the big utilities state utilities for trying to offload the cost of the old coal-fired plants onto customers’ bills. The campaign includes statewide radio ads, direct mail pieces, online ads and animated web gifs, along with curbside kiosk ads in downtown Columbus. The advertising will continue throughout the holiday season to help assure that consumers don’t get coal in their stockings while the big utility companies make off with the gold.

The New Yorker:

These are the clarions of an industry that has been declining for decades and is now under siege from the glut of cheap natural gas, which has transformed the nation’s energy economy. Kentucky produces less than half as much coal as it did in 1990. Thirty years ago, the state had forty-eight thousand coal miners; today, it has twelve thousand. Wyoming, which accounts for forty per cent of U.S. coal production, is in healthier shape, but, with the nation’s power plants in decline, the state’s coal producers desperately need new markets. To that end, a couple of years ago, they began looking for ways to ship tens of millions of tons of coal to Asia. They were especially eager to get their product to India, because Wyoming coal, which is strip-mined from the Powder River Basin, is low in sulfur, and India’s own coal, which is being dug up as fast as the new government of Narendra Modi can manage, is notoriously dirty.

Continue reading “Last Lunge for Black Lungs – Coal Running Out of Oxygen”

As we come closer to knowing where 2014 falls in the global temperature record books, useful to remember its not just about how much heat – but where the heating is occurring.

Above, December 3, 2014 temperature anomalies from the University of Maine’s Climate Re-analyzer.

Continue reading “Not Just How Much Heat, But Where”

Senator Jim Inhofe continues his bid to become to Climate Denial what Strom Thurmond was to Civil Rights.

You Go, Jimbo. Don’t let the damn libble meedyuh tell you what to think! God is telling you what to do!

The Hill:

Singer Barbra Streisand took to Twitter Tuesday night to attack the Senate’s best-known climate change skeptic.

Streisand slammed Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) for his views on global warming after reading an article published Tuesday in Mother Jones that included comments made by the senator in 2009 at the United Nations climate change convention in Copenhagen.

In an interview with Mother Jones back in 2009, Inhofe said “Hollywood liberals and extreme environmentalists” engineered the hoax that he calls climate change.

When pressed on who in Hollywood specifically did it, Inhofe said: “Barbra Streisand.”

Below, Senator Inhofe demonstrates that he is in denial about a whole lot more than climate.

Mother Jones interview, 2009:

Look around us, I said, spreading my arms wide. There are thousands of intelligent and well-meaning people in this gigantic conference center: scientists, heads of state, government officials, policy experts. They believe that climate change is a serious and pressing threat and that something must be done soon. Do you believe that they have all been fooled?

Yes, he said, grinning.

That these people who have traveled from all points of the globe to be here are victims of a well-orchestrated hoax?

Yes, he said, still smiling.

Continue reading “The Way We Weren’t: Inhofe Singles out Streisand as Global Warming Hoaxer in Chief”

We’ll know in a few weeks where 2014 falls in the temperature record. It will be close, possibly a record in some datasets, and not others – setting up more head-exploding holiday party conversations with Uncle Dittohead and Aunt Teabag.

You’re welcome.

CNN:

The first ten months of 2014 have been the hottest since record keeping began more than 130 years ago, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That may be hard to believe for people in places like Buffalo, New York, which saw a record early snowfall this year.

But NOAA says, despite the early bitter cold across parts of the United States in recent weeks, it’s been a hot year so far for the Earth.

With two months left on the calendar, 2014 is shaping up to be the hottest year on record.

The average global temperature between January and October has been 0.68 degrees Celsius (1.22 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the 20th century’s average global temperature of 14.1 C (57.4 F).

NOAA’s analysis is an important “health gauge” indicating an ominous trend for the planet, says CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam.

“It’s becoming increasingly more difficult to be a skeptic of the causes of our warming planet,” he says.
–

There was also one notable cold spot on the map.

The average temperature this year in the midsection of the United States, which saw a severe winter, has been below the 20th century average.

Economic Times – India:

NOAA said the ocean temperatures were also the warmest on record in October with an increase of 1.12 F over the 20th century average of 60.6 degrees.

“Record warmth for the year-to-date was particularly notable across much of northern and western Europe, parts of Far East Russia, and large areas of the northeastern and western equatorial Pacific Ocean,” NOAA said.

“It is also notable that record warmth was observed in at least some areas of every continent and major ocean basin around the world,” the agency said.

Of particular note, several countries have already seen an average temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius in October 2014 compared to 20th century averages, including Australia, Germany, France, Switzerland and Sweden.

BBC:

This year could be the UK’s warmest for almost 250 years as measured by the world’s oldest temperature record, say researchers.

The 11 months from January to November have already been the warmest period on the Central England Temperature record.

And meteorologists from the University of Reading believe there is a 75% chance the year will turn out to be the hottest since the record began in 1772.

They say man-made climate change is at least partly to blame globally.

According to the CET record – which measures representative temperatures from a triangular area between Lancashire, London and Bristol – every month so far this year apart from August has been above the long-term average.

The researchers said 2014 would set a new record unless December temperatures were cool.

Australian Bureau of Meteorology – Special Statement:

Continue reading “Tallying 2014: Closing in on a Record?”

Evidence is piling up.  It seems increasingly unlikely that the planet will stay on the lower end of sea level rise estimates for this century.
And remember, this study covers just one area of Antarctica, where we have good instrument coverage.

NASA:

A comprehensive, 21-year analysis of the fastest-melting region of Antarctica has found that the melt rate of glaciers there has tripled during the last decade.

The glaciers in the Amundsen Sea Embayment in West Antarctica are hemorrhaging ice faster than any other part of Antarctica and are the most significant Antarctic contributors to sea level rise. This study by scientists at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), and NASA is the first to evaluate and reconcile observations from four different measurement techniques to produce an authoritative estimate of the amount and the rate of loss over the last two decades.

This work extends the work of Eric Rignot, who stunned the ice sheet community last spring with his “holy shit moment” paper on unstoppable Antarctic melting – discussed here in a very important video, if you have not seen it.

NASA again:

“The mass loss of these glaciers is increasing at an amazing rate,” said scientist Isabella Velicogna, jointly of UCI and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. Velicogna is a coauthor of a paper on the results, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Lead author Tyler Sutterley, a doctoral candidate at UCI, and his team did the analysis to verify that the melting in this part of Antarctica is shifting into high gear. “Previous studies had suggested that this region is starting to change very dramatically since the 1990s, and we wanted to see how all the different techniques compared,” Sutterley said. “The remarkable agreement among the techniques gave us confidence that we are getting this right.”

Continue reading “NASA: Antarctic Melt Loss Triples in a Decade”

Above, Bill Mckibben accepts the Swedish Parliament’s Right Livelihood Award, known as the “alternative Nobel” prize.
He describes signs of a rising global movement on climate, and the fraying edges of the Fossil Fuel front.

Guardian:

The Bank of England is to conduct an enquiry into the risk of fossil fuel companies causing a major economic crash if future climate change rules render their coal, oil and gas assets worthless.

The concept of a “carbon bubble” has gained rapid recognition since 2013, and is being taken increasingly seriously by some major financial companies including Citi bank, HSBC and Moody’s, but the Bank’s enquiry is the most significant endorsement yet from a regulator.

The concern is that if the world’s government’s meet their agreed target of limiting global warming to 2C by cutting carbon emissions, then about two-thirds of proven coal, oil and gas reserves cannot be burned. With fossil fuel companies being among the largest in the world, sharp losses in their value could prompt a new economic crisis.

Mark Carney, the bank’s governor, revealed the enquiry in a letter to the House of Commons environment audit committee (EAC), which is conducting its own enquiry. He said there had been an initial discussion within the bank on “stranded” fossil fuel assets.

“In light of these discussions, we will be deepening and widening our enquiry into the topic,” he said, involving the financial policy committee which is tasked with identifying systemic economic risks. Carney had raised the issue at a World Bank seminar in October.

In October, the Guardian had reported that:

The governor of the Bank of England has reiterated his warning that fossil fuel companies cannot burn all of their reserves if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate change, and called for investors to consider the long-term impacts of their decisions.

According to reports, Carney told a World Bank seminar on integrated reporting on Friday that the “vast majority of reserves are unburnable” if global temperature rises are to be limited to below 2C.

Carney is the latest high profile figure to lend his weight to the “carbon bubble” theory, which warns that fossil fuel assets, such as coal, oil and gas, could be significantly devalued if a global deal to tackle climate change is reached.

Lord Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics had this to say a year ago on the risks associated with fossil fuel investment.

CBC – Canada:

Major financial firms such as Citibank, HSBC and Moody’s have also begun to study the impact of a carbon bubble and stranded assets. Thinktank Carbon Tracker helps financial companies and fossil fuel companies get the risk in hand.

“Fossil fuel companies should be disclosing how many carbon emissions are locked up in their reserves,” Carbon Tracker CEO Anthoy Hobley said. “At the moment there is no consistency in reporting so it’s difficult for investors to make informed decisions.”

ExxonMobil agreed earlier this year to publish a “Carbon Asset Risk” report describing how it assesses its financial risks from climate change, but its report downplayed the risk of a carbon bubble saying it doesn’t believe its assets will be stranded. Shell also has denied it is a carbon risk.

In today’s environment of falling oil prices, many companies are already hesitating to invest in new oil and gas projects, especially if they are unconventional developments which can be more expensive.

And any progress toward a climate change agreement in 2015 could also discourage investment.

At the same time, a giant European corporation is splitting off fossil fuels to concentrate on renewable energy.

“If we’re going to be as Gods, we might as well get good at it” was a catch phrase in the Last Whole Earth Catalog.
I don’t think this is what they had in mind.
Scientists have been contemplating the Last Resort.  Above, Rutger’s Alan Robock on pros, and cons.

Guardian:

The carbon emissions that cause climate change are continuing to rise and, without sharp cuts, the world is set for “severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts”. This has led some to propose geoengineering but others have warned that unforeseen impacts of global-scale action to try to counteract warming could make the situation worse.

Matthew Watson, at the University of Bristol, who led one of the studies in the £5m research programme, said: “We are sleepwalking to a disaster with climate change. Cutting emissions is undoubtedly the thing we should be focusing on but it seems to be failing. Although geoengineering is terrifying to many people, and I include myself in this, [its feasibility and safety] are questions that have to be answered.”

Watson led the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (Spice) project, which abandoned controversial attempts to test spraying droplets into the atmosphere from a balloon in 2012. But he said on Wednesday: “We will have to go outside eventually. There are just some things you cannot do in the lab.”

Prof Steve Rayner at the University of Oxford, who led the Climate Geoengineering Governance project, said the research showed geoengineering was “neither a magic bullet nor a Pandora’s box”.

But he said global security would be threatened unless an international treaty was agreed to oversee any sun-blocking projects. “For example, if India had put sulphate particles into the stratosphere, even as a test, two years before the recent floods in Pakistan, no one would ever persuade Pakistan that that had not caused the floods.”

Here, Dr. Mike MacCracken fleshes out some additional ideas, including, very interesting possibilities for ice breakers and Arctic solar heat management.

Bill Nye is a guest on NDGT’s “Star Talk” radio show. Hilarity ensues.

Video by John Cook of Skeptical Science. The Skeptical Science blog has been, for years, the web’s leading resource on debunking complex science denial memes, the “Climate Crocks” that I’ve taken on in videos and on this blog.

This piece is a look at the “One-Two” punches of climate change, warming and acidification., and their impacts on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
I’ll be working with John in San Francisco later in December, where we have a full slate of world class scientists we’ll be interviewing at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.