Worthwhile in any case, but turns out, not off topic.
Month: August 2015
Lindsay Graham Answers Lone Fox Question on Climate: “You Believe in Science. How Can We Trust You?”
Unless I fell asleep and missed something, I think this was it, as far as any attention to the most important issue of our time, on the Fox News “Debate”.
Ice Cream May Lose out to Climate Change
Farmers plant, grow and harvest based on, more or less, consistent and predictable weather— but if we don’t curb carbon emissions the new normal will become intensified rains and prolonged droughts that can ruin a whole season’s crops. Here are 3 Ben & Jerry’s ingredients that are in climate change’s crosshairs, putting the flavors that use those ingredients on the “Endangered Pints List.”
Cocoa, aka Chocolate:
From Phish Food to Chocolate Fudge Brownie, chocolate is the foundation of many Ben & Jerry’s flavors. A study by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture points out that an increase of 2.3 degrees Celsius in West Africa by 2050 would make the region too warm to grow cocoa. A recent Earth Security Index report showed that unsustainable farming practices over the past 4 decades have already taken a bite out of 40% of land available for cocoa crops. Climate change is putting pressure on this shaky production model by exacerbating droughts worldwide. Farmers dependent on this crop for their survival are turning to more resilient plants, or just giving up cocoa overall. What happens in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire— which account for around 60% of the world’s chocolate production alone— may spell chocolate disaster for ice cream everywhere.Nuts
From walnuts to pistachios, the nutty texture of flavors like Chunky Monkey are facing a serious, ahem, crunch. It turns out that nut trees adapted to temperate regions require a winter chill to stimulate spring growth. That sort of weather is looking like it will be in short supply with the intensifying temperatures in key nut growing regions including California, southeastern U.S., China and Australia. Already, the loss of winter chill has hit nut crops in Israel, Morocco, Tunisia and the Cape region of South Africa. Tree crops, unlike ground crops, take a lot longer to plant and reach maturity, making it relatively impossible to relocate when the weather changes. It won’t be adaptation, it’ll be starting over. That’s a tough nut to crack.
Climate Denial and Racism. Again.
A well known climate denier (who would probably want me to link to him) demonstrates once again something I’ve noticed and commented on for years.
Now that a national debate over this symbol has made the issue even more prominent, can there be anyone who does not get the crystal clear message being sent here? This is not a dog whistle, it’s a public address system.
C’mon over – You can trust me because I’m a racist, too!
In a recently televised interview, Historian Ken Burns underlines just what the not-subtle symbolism of this image is. (he starts at 1:10 below)
For more on the heinous image above, see here.
As famously denialist Senator Ted Cruz shows, below, admiration for racism and racists goes hand in paw with climate denial.
Majorities in Almost Every State Favor new Limits on Coal
Obama’s Clean Power Plan turns up the heat on climate deniers who are being left behind by a changing demographic.
Yale Project on Climate Communication:
The final rules of the EPA Clean Power Plan are now unveiled. The plan requires states to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, one of the nation’s largest sources of carbon pollution.
In recent months, some Republicans in Congress and governors from coal-producing states have attacked the new plan. These attacks might suggest there is widespread public opposition to regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant. However, our research finds the opposite.
In our latest national survey (March, 2015), we found that a large majority of Americans support setting strict emission limits on coal-fired power plants – by more than a two-to-one margin: 70% support; 29% oppose.
Likewise, our models of public opinion in all 50 states (2014) find that a majority of Americans in almost every state support setting strict emission limits on coal-fired power plants.
WASHINGTON — An overwhelming majority of the American public, including half of Republicans, support government action to curb global warming, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times, Stanford University and the nonpartisan environmental research group Resources for the Future.
In a finding that could have implications for the 2016 presidential campaign, the poll also found that two-thirds of Americans said they were more likely to vote for political candidates who campaign on fighting climate change. They were less likely to vote for candidates who questioned or denied the science that determined that humans caused global warming.
Among Republicans, 48 percent say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports fighting climate change, a result that Jon A. Krosnick, a professor of political science at Stanford University and an author of the survey, called “the most powerful finding” in the poll. Many Republican candidates question the science of climate change or do not publicly address the issue.
New Video: We are The Asteroid
Old Indian proverb:
If you don’t change directions, you may wind up where you’re headed.
With climate change, that could be a very dark place.
Harrowing interviews with scientists who study some of the most catastrophic episodes in Earth history.
How We Learned About Greenland Melting
Dark Snow Project chief scientist Jason Box has written a very worthwhile piece for the Huffington Post.
COPENHAGEN — For me it was only after eight years of studying Greenland — installing and maintaining a network of on-ice climate stations and examining how much snow evaporates from the island — that I suddenly realized glaciology textbooks needed a major revision. This was 2002. Prior to the epiphany, conventional knowledge held that the ice sheet was frozen at its bed and so the reaction time of the ice sheet to climate warming was measured in tens of thousands of years. A heck of a long time.
Climate warming had just infiltrated Greenland glaciology in earnest. Summer melt water, it turned out, drains down quickly to the bed, lubricating the glacier’s flow. Suddenly we realized an expanding melt season meant the ice sheet would be sliding faster, longer. It was not to be the only time our philosophy got hit with a major surprise that connected the ice sheet with climate change and the threat of abrupt sea level rise.
The next one came in 2006.
Somehow all marine-terminating glaciers across the southern half of Greenland doubled in speed simultaneously between 2000 and 2005. We didn’t yet know why.
In the meantime, scientists tried defining a plausible upper limit for the contribution to sea level rise from Greenland’s ice. That was at a time when surging glacier speeds — ice flow — was thought to be the dominant conveyer of ice loss, and would be for the foreseeable future. Well — surprise! — it became clear that for six years in a row, starting in 2007, ice loss from surface meltwater runoff took over the lead position in the competition for biggest loser. From 2007 to 2012, nearly each summer set higher and higher melt records, owing to persistent and unforseen weather that by 2012 would become a signature of climate change.
Analysis: Clean Power Plan will Save Consumers Money
Careful. Word’s getting out in the Heartland.
Cache Valley Daily, Logan Utah:
SALT LAKE CITY – The Clean Power Plan, which President Obama finalized Monday, is expected to help energy consumers in Utah and around the country save money on their utility bills.
Synapse Energy Economics, which developed a model that includes investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency in a new report, found the average Utah household participating in energy-efficiency programs will save $39 per month on its electric bill in 2030.
Economist and report co-author Elizabeth Stanton said there will also be far less carbon emissions.
“It not only achieves the requirements of the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan, but it actually exceeds them in terms of having even greater emissions reduction,” said Stanton.
(KMAland) — According to two new reports, Missouri can help its residents save money while cutting carbon emissions as the state implements the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan.
Elizabeth Stanton, principal economist with Synergy Energy Economics, which put together one of the reports, says if states like Missouri invest heavily in renewables and increased efficiency to comply with the plan, the savings will follow.
“Missouri households taking advantage of energy-efficiency programs under the proposed Clean Power Plan would save $44 a month on average and their bills would be $92 a month in 2030.”
Continue reading “Analysis: Clean Power Plan will Save Consumers Money”
Defending the Clean Power Plan
The President stated that the final Clean Power Plan is fair, flexible and designed to strengthen the fast-growing trend toward cleaner and lower-polluting American energy.
“With strong but achievable standards for power plants, and customized goals for states to cut the carbon pollution that is driving climate change, the Clean Power Plan provides national consistency, accountability and a level playing field while reflecting each state’s energy mix. It also shows the world that the United States is committed to leading global efforts to address climate change.”
Last year, even the United States military, an institution not generally known for its liberal thinking, declared that climate change poses a major threat to our national and global security. So this Plan was bound to be developed with climate in mind.
Critics claim that the Plan is inherently unfair, punishes taxpayers and will destroy our economy, similar to what was claimed for the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and a host of other environmental changes that have kept our country reasonable cleaner and safer than most other nations in the world.
Fair to say none of that ever happened. And none of that will happen if this Plan gets enacted. What would happen is the United States would get much cleaner and healthier air, regardless of what you think about climate change.
Big Carbon Behind Deceptive Ad Campaign
Ever wonder how these guys can sleep at night?
In what seems a redux of Ronald Reagan’s famous “trees cause pollution” quote, the National Association of Manufacturers has a new ad claiming that new pollution regs would put the Grand Canyon in violation of the Clean Air Act.
A powerful organization representing industrial polluters launched a misleading new television ad last week with images of pristine national parks that are, in fact, experiencing dangerous levels of air pollution caused by its own members.
The ad is part of a multi-million dollar campaign by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) against a proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce ozone pollution, which causes breathing problems, aggravates lung diseases, and contributes to premature deaths. The TV ad claims that the proposed regulations are so strict that even America’s “pristine” national parks would fail to comply.
“Our National Parks: vast, untouched, pristine, no industrial activity for miles,” the narrator says in the ad over images of Yosemite, the Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks. “But under new ozone rules out of Washington, these national treasures would actually violate clean air laws.”
What the ad doesn’t say is that industrial air pollution in national parks, including these three, is already so bad that air quality frequently fails to meet public health standards. According to the National Park Service, air quality and visibility at the Grand Canyon is declining because the park “lies downwind of polluted air from coal-fired power plants in the Four Corners region, nearby mining, and urban and industrial pollutants from Mexico and California.”
Yosemite National Park’s air quality is regularly so poor that it is unhealthy for park rangers and visitors, according to a new report by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA).
In a press release announcing the ad, NAM President and CEO, Jay Timmons, also misleadingly claims that “the new proposed ozone standard is so over the top, even places with no industrial activity for miles around will be considered noncompliant.”
In fact, many national parks are surrounded by industrial activity that contributes to air pollution and other environmental problems. For example, the Alton Coal Mine in Utah is just over 10 miles from Bryce Canyon National Park, and a proposed expansion of the strip mining operations would further threaten the iconic park and contribute to air pollution.