I'm veering a bit off of the subject of climate here... As you've probably heard, the Sudanese government has placed a deadline of September 30th for the withdrawl of the African Union peacekeepers from the Darfur region. This Sunday, rallies are being held in cities around the world to call for UN intervention. People attending the rallies are being asked to wear a blue hat to symbolize the need for UN peacekeepers in Darfur.
I’ll be going to the rally in New York (from 2-5 pm, in the East Meadow of Central Park). For information about the plans in your area, check the Global Day for Darfur site. Retired Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, head of the UN mission in Rwanda, will be keynote speaker at the Toronto rally.
Not that the climate has been irrelevant here. Many experts feel the ongoing drought in central Africa may have played a role in the Darfur crisis, just as the 1990s drought in Afghanistan may have played a role in the rise of the Taliban. In the case of the Sudan, changes in rainfall brought the nomadic peoples into conflict with settled pastoralists. If you are interested in the subject, I recommend this article in the magazine Seed.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Global Day for Darfur
Thursday, September 14, 2006
El Nino on the way
There's a mild El Nino event brewing in the Pacific. The forecasters have suspected as much for the past couple months. The latest data (right) showing abnormally warm water in the central and eastern Equatorial Pacific led to the El Nino forecast by NOAA.
This is not expected to be anything like the strong 1998 El Nino event. But we will probably see some of the climate effects of El Nino, including dry weather in Australia and the western Pacific, a milder winter and spring in central North America and wet weather in Florida and the Gulf Coast.
The warming in the central Pacific could impact the reefs there. The coral bleaching event I surveyed in western Kiribati (intersection of the equator and the dateline, right under the orange spot in above map) in 2004 occurred after a very similar build-up of ocean temperatures from July-December. Bleaching is a paling caused by a breakdown of the symbiosis between the coral, the reef-building animal, and the colourful algae that lives in the coral's tissue. If the conditions that cause bleaching persist, like abnormally ocean waters, the corals can die. That's not the end of the story, though. The reefs can recover - the evidence from my colleagues suggests the corals have been returning after the high mortality we measured. The ecological questions are more how the community changes due to a bleaching event, and what happens if the disturbances (ie. the warm water) occur more frequently than in the past.
A couple weeks ago, NOAA Coral Reef Watch put out a bleaching warning for western Kiribati and the U.S. islands in the area (thanks in small part to my ranting). It will be interested to see, if the temperature stress continues to build, how the coral community responds. There is evidence that some corals can acclimate or adapt to warming ocean temperatures, by shifting the symbiosis to more temperature-tolerant algae. This may be an interesting test. Now if only someone wants to fund my research proposal...
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
More on climate change and tropical ocean temperatures
There's yet another new study about the contribution of human-induced climate change to ocean warming in the regions of hurricane development ("tropical cyclogenesis regions"). This one, by Ben Santer and colleagues in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (check Sept 12), uses the results from a number of different climate model simulations conducted for the upcoming IPCC assessment to estimate the amount of warming caused by natural or background climate variability and by external (human) forcing.
Media coverage of observed climate warming, especially related to hurricanes, tends to suggest that are two possible, but distinct, causes: forcing from the increase in greenhouse gases, or natural climate variability. Critics or skeptics of climate change science are often interviewed and say the observed warming is due to natural variability. This claim sets up a straw man: an assumption that climate scientists think that observed warming is entirely due to greenhouse gases or that the models that climate scientists use do not consider the effect of natural variability.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Much of the energy in the climate change science community is devoted to using climate models to examine exactly this problem: what fraction of observed warming over the past century can be attributed to natural variability, or to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations? This "climate change attribution" is done not just by running climate models with, and without, human forcings (GHG emissions) and then comparing the results to the historical temperature record, but by also analyzing "control runs" of the models. In a control run, the model is run for hundreds or thousands of "years" to estimate the background climate variability (in the model). The control run is contrasted with observations to gauge ability of the model to represent different "modes" of variability (ie. year-to-year, decadal, multi-decadal). With knowledge of the models' strengths and shortcomings, detailed statistical analysis can then used to tease out the role of natural variability and of greenhouse gas emissions in the observed warming.
If your work involves climate science, or you are just interested in the subject of climate change attribution or specifically in the hurricane issue, I recommend reading the Santer et al paper itself to get a sense of the strengths of this form of analysis. You can also read the nice summary of the subject on Realclimate.
Climate change in the Economist
The latest issue of the Economist has a comprehensive special report on climate change. While a few parts of the report suffers from the same old problems - blurring the line between evaluating the science and evaluating what to do about the science (the intro is just bizarre), the "he said, she said" method of reporting that inevitably gives too much creedence to the few critics of the science, loose use of the word uncertainty - it is on the whole well done.
What really sets this report apart from others that harp about scientific uncertainty is the conclusion: "The uncertainty surrounding climate change argues for action, not inaction."
The lead editorial calls for the introduction of either a carbon tax (more efficient) or a carbon cap-and-trade system (more likely). It then takes aim at the Bush Administration:
"Although George Bush now argues that America needs to wean itself off its dependency on oil, his administration still refuses to take serious action. But other Americans are moving. California's state assembly has just passed tough Kyoto-style targets. Many businesses, fearing that they will end up having to deal with a patchwork of state-level measures, now want federal controls. And conservative America, once solidly sceptical, is now split over the issue, as Christians concerned about mankind's stewardship of the Earth, neo-cons keen to reduce America's dependency on the Middle East and farmers who see alternative energy as a new potential source of energy come round to the idea of cutting down on carbon.
Mr Bush has got two years left in the job. He would like to be remembered as a straightshooter who did the right thing. Tackling climate change would be one way to do that."
Sunday, September 10, 2006
A vegetarian fishery
The novelist Paul Greenberg had a terrific op-ed about sustainable fisheries in last week's NY Times. Take a look, if you haven't already. The key premise behind the popular sustainable seafood guides - that we should eat and farm 'vegetarian' fish - is rarely articulated this well:
"... go vegetarian, in a manner of speaking. Farmed fish have gotten a bad name in recent years — even while our production of them has grown to rival the wild fish harvest, as the Food and Agriculture Organization reported this week. This is mostly because the farmed fish we eat in the West are carnivores. Raising carnivores like salmon requires the capture of wild prey fish that wild fish also consume. By eating farmed carnivores we rob Peter to pay Paul, stealing the food source for wild fish and feeding them to farmed."
That's why farmed tilapia and carp are deemed OK by the Monterey Bay Aquarium seafood guide (and others) but farmed salmon is not. Farming salmon is like using (carnivorous) wolves rather than (vegetarian) cattle as livestock.
Greenberg applies a similar argument to some threatened pelagic (open-ocean) fisheries:
"... don’t eat the big fish. Dining on a 500-pound bluefin tuna is the seafood equivalent of driving a Hummer. Ten pounds of little fish are required to produce one pound of bluefin and all the pollutants contained in a tuna’s prey “bio-concentrate” in a tuna’s flesh, making it a particularly compromised animal, chemically speaking. And because it takes so many little fish to make a big fish, the sea can sustain only a relatively small amount of large fish."
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Pros and cons of the ethanol business
On Friday, the NY Times business section had an informative story about engineering of crops to produce ethanol. It is a good reminder that biofuels are not an immediate solution to the American dependency on oil or the greenhouse gas burden.
As the article points out, the U.S. Energy Department reports that even if entire U.S. corn crop, which is about 40% of the world's corn, were used to produce ethanol, it would only replace 15% of U.S. petroleum use. The key to future ethanol production is likely to be genetic engineering: adding enzymes to corn to aid the conversion of plant starches to sugars (fermented to become ethanol) and improving yields of grasses whose cellulose can be converted to fuel. The article reviews the benefits and some of the dangers of crop engineering, like cross-pollination with wild species (good luck finding non-engineering canola anymore).
Friday, September 08, 2006
A cause for concern
A recent survey reports that 64% of the CEOs of small and medium-sized US businesses are “concerned about global warming”. I would hardly call this cause for celebration. Being concerned is very different from feeling that climate change is a significant problem requiring immediate action.
As the head of Vistage International, the CEO membership organization (talk about an exclusive club) that conducted the survey, said: “The question is whether that concern will translate to the willingness to support legislation and regulatory requirements that impact their businesses."
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Optimism, on one side of the border
There has been no shortage of positive developments in the US climate change and emissions control policy.
You can sense the optimism flowing from California’s decision to enact the most comprehensive greenhouse gas emission reduction policy in the U.S. This state is, after all, governed by the man personally responsible for the creation of the Hummer: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s interest in purchasing a military Humvee led GM to produce the vehicle that became the totem of inefficiency to environmentalists nation-wide.
The cover story in the most recent E / the Environment magazine boasts of all the emission reduction initiatives in U.S. cities like Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco (and also in countries like Iceland, Sweden, Germany and the Czech Republic).
With so much movement by individual cities and states, most experts now assume that the next administration in the US – whether Republican or Democrat – will enact a national emissions policy. In a recent speech, Al Gore predicted that the Bush Administration may change their policy on climate change before leaving office.
It is enough to make one optimistic about North America finally attacking climate change.
Make that just America. The Conservative government in Canada is set to announce the new environmental agenda (“Green Plan II”). It will include a much-needed new program to combat smog-forming emissions and air quality. But the CBC reports there may be nothing concrete on GHG emissions for years. The government’s decision to focus on air quality and largely ignore climate change was apparently seconded by focus groups across the country over the summer (were the focus groups asked either/or questions? GHG emissions and smog-forming pollutants come from many of the same sources… it’d be logical to combine the two policies, not play them off one another).
Maybe Californian Robin Williams was right: comedy is acting out optimism.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Investing in efficiency
People like to ask me about environmentally or ‘climatically’ responsible investing, either out of a) genuine interest in supporting companies that are taking action on climate change, or b) the belief that I may have some savvy investment tips (er, given the number of my possessions held together by duct tape, I'd say no).
I did, however, recently come across this interesting study on the concept of climatically responsible investing. It uses a metric originally designed to measure social responsibility to evaluates how six companies, including BP, Shell and a random university, measure up in efforts to combat climate change (pdf).
The study is interesting - and amusing. The university finishes last. Though I suspect it is not the case with the university, the scoring method - relative improvement from each company’s independent starting point – could bias against companies that were already energy efficient.
A similar point can be made about international climate policy. Emissions reductions should be easier in places like the North America, than in Europe and Japan, which were already more energy or GHG-efficient. The fact that emissions reduction policy has been less acceptable in North America suggests that the main obstacle is culture, not opportunity.
Monday, August 28, 2006
China, the US and the typhoons
The devastating impact of the typhoons in China – 15 million, yes, million, people may be homeless – is a reminder that the majority of Chinese population is still quite poor.
Opponents of the Kyoto Protocol love to point out that the rapid economic growth of Kyoto-exempt China. The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from China are expected to surpass that of the United States sometime in the next 20-30 years.
As well they should. There are 1.3 billion people in China. Even if China caught up to the US in total emissions, the average Chinese would still be responsible for less than one quarter of the emissions of the average American (currently ~21 tons CO2 eq./year*).
So let’s ease off on the rhetoric. No doubt, China will need to be a part of long-term international effort to reduce GHG emissions. That will mean China shifting away from coal burning and from the increasing reliance on imported oil. Sound familiar? The best thing North Americans can do right now is set a good precedent.
And yell and scream about how to help the victims of the typhoons.
* All GHG emissions reported in units of CO2 ‘equivalent’. The gases are summed by factoring in their global warming potential relative to CO2. There’s an even bigger gap between the US and China in CO2 emissions alone.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Over 15 million Chinese left homeless from typhoons
I've started watching Spike Lee's film "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts", about Hurricane Katrina, last night. This morning, I found the only wire story in the today's western Press about the recent typhoons in China:
SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- Communities in southeastern China are straining to resettle more than 15 million people left homeless by four devastating typhoons in recent months, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.
The storms caused $3.6 billion in direct damage, Xinhua said, citing provincial officials in Fujian, the province worst hit by the disasters. The most costly damage was to businesses, farms, communications networks and water conservation projects. It said the central government had allocated only $7.5 million in relief funds for Fujian and neighboring Zhejiang province.
The most recent storm, Saomai, hit Fujian in mid-August, killing 441 people. It was the worst storm since record-keeping began in 1949, according to the government. Each summer brings catastrophic weather to China, usually in the form of torrential rains and tropical storms. But this year, while coastal regions are rebuilding from floods and typhoons, many inland areas are enduring their worst drought in decades.
That's about 100 000 people a word. You’d hope, with the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina coming next week, the devastating impact of the recent typhoons in China would garner more attention here.
Where's the outrage over this? $7.5 million in relief funds from the Chinese government? 50 cents per person made homeless? That makes the federal response to Hurricane Katrina look generous.
If you want to help, the Hong Kong Red Cross is accepting donations for typhoon relief.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
60%? I'll see that, and raise you 5%
A number, dare I say a plethora, of long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions plans have been proposed lately by politicians in the US, the UK and Canada.
Tony Blair got the ball rolling a couple years ago when he called for the UK to reduce GHG emissions by 60% below 1990 levels by the year 2050. This year, California Gov. Schwarzenegger (I’ll always get a kick out of writing that, seriously, who thought that two of the stars of Predator would become governors?) proposed GHG targets for California of 1990 levels by 2020, and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. The CA legislature is set to debate a very similar proposal by a rival Democrat. The vote should happen for the Legislature breaks on Aug. 31st.
The proposals just keep coming:
- Oregon and New Mexico: 75% below 1990 levels by 2050.
- John Kerry (US Senate): 65% below 2000 levels by 2050.
- The Safe Climate Act (US House of Representatives): 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
The Pew Center even put together a map.
The trend of tossing out big numbers has spread across the border into Canada. Michael Ignatieff, the Canadian MP and candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party, has called to reduce GHG emissions by 50% below 1990 levels by the year 2050. The other leadership contenders, especially former Environment Minister Stéphane Dion and Bob Rae, are also expected to release similar plans in the coming days. It can be comical to hear Canadian politicians propose substantial long-term emissions reductions, when the more modest Kyoto goals have been ignored. Although, one could argue that the mistake by many on both sides of the aisle in Canada was viewing Kyoto as an endpoint, rather than the first step on a longer path to stabilization.
I imagine you’ll see a similar climatic chest-bumping when the battle for the Democratic nomination begins in earnest next year.
There is some real logic behind the various targets. The goal in designing a long-term policy should be an optimal path of emissions – the rate of flow into the bathtub each year – that ensures the level of GHG in the atmosphere – the amount of water in the tub – stays within a limit deemed acceptable. To use the lingo, the goal is to stabilize GHG concentrations at a level that avoids dangerous anthropogenic interference (DAI) in the climate system.
Now there has been plenty of discussion in the climate science and policy community as to what should constitute DAI. The most commonly proposals are (enough residual warming in the climate system to cause) the collapse of an ice sheet, a shift in ocean circulation, extreme or recurrent drought threatening food production, or widespread damage to the world’s coral reefs. The definition of what is ‘dangerous’ allows some back-calculating or modeling of the ‘allowable’ emissions (e.g. to 2050).
Often ignored in the discussion is the fact that, since GHGs like carbon dioxide can remain in the atmosphere for a long time, the path of emissions over time, not just the end result, also matters. Most of the well-conceived policy proposals include a series of targets chosen with the aid of simple climate models.
It appears that the different proposals are aimed at stabilizing CO2 at 500-550 ppm in the atmosphere, roughly a doubling of the pre-industrial level. My guess is the scientific advisors in each case argued that further increases would cause the climate to warm past thresholds for the ice sheets and the slowdown of the ocean’s thermohaline circulation (I doubt corals got much play). An optimist could claim the difference between the endpoints of the various plans – 65%, 80%, 50%, 75%, 60% -- was simply the choice of model in each case.
It is crucial to set the right targets. But, in the end, designing the policy is the easy part. Voters in the Liberal party, in California, and in the 2008 primaries, should not be seduced by the candidate offers to jump the highest, but the candidate that offers the best implementation plan.
Monday, August 21, 2006
A monday morning read
If you need a break this morning, read this short article from Hindustan Times (thanks Vaishali!) about the irony of some recommended energy-saving measures.
And if you want a longer break, I've got a game for you. Grab some provisions, maybe a headlamp, and descend down into the Byzantine network of Canadian government web pages in search of the few pages that still mention climate change. There are a few good pages about climate science left. It just takes a lot of backtracking, redirecting and illogical linking to get there. Don't fall for those plentiful links to the "climate change web site". Way too obvious.
Bonus marks if you can get to the BC / Yukon climate change page with a pile of links at the bottom. Go one by one through the federal government links. That reminded me of the experience of trying to find something to eat in Princeton after 9:30 pm.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Where Canadians can't learn about climate change
A Reuters piece circulating the regular media features a short list of "links to Web sites of governments, climate experts, environmental groups and companies with tips for lifestyle changes to cut individuals' use of oil, coal and natural gas."
Most of the links - the US EPA, the European Community, WWF, etc - contain the usual list of recommended personal actions like cycling rather than driving, etc.
You'll notice that for Canada, there is only a link to the government's GHG emissions calculator. Why no tips for personal action from Canada?
The Conservative government dismantled the climate change site. People hoping to visit what was a highly regarded site explaining the science of climate change are now told their interest in "the important issue" is appreciated, and directed to Environment Canada's Green Lane site, where the climate change page contains an Orwellian message that, as previously reported, does not actually mention climate change.
By contrast, the UK Conservative party is pushing for action on climate change through a new transportation policy.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
What we don't know
David Suzuki's latest column talks about how most of the public still knows very little about climate change:
"Recently, my foundation conducted a focus group about global warming to see where people are at in their understanding of this complex and challenging problem. The results? Let's just say they were disconcerting, to say the least... Apparently, according to the average Joe, global warming is happening because we've created a hole in the ozone layer, allowing the sun's rays to enter the atmosphere and heat up the earth -- or something like that. The cause of the problem is cars, or airplanes, or aerosol cans. No one really knows for sure."
The tone is a bit flippant, but the point is important. Those of us in the scientific community should not assume that all the headlines and all the films means people understand the very basics of climate change.
There's a segment of people working to communicate of the urgency of climate change who argue that educating the public any more about the science won't make a difference. The problem is, they are assuming most of the public has some basic level of knowledge. Unless you're under 30 or a scientist, it's unlikely you learned the basic concepts in any organized fashion (i.e., in school). The information is coming in small snippets in newspapers, on television, etc. It is not surprising that people still get the ozone hole and climate change confused. That's why we need things like the beginning of Gore's movie (that explaining the basics of the greenhouse effect).
Now, if only we can do something about the pop-up ads in the ENN page with Suzuki's column. Drag your mouse over the word "ozone", as in hole in the ozone layer, and up pops an ad for a home air purifier called an "ozone generator". Brilliant. The power of search engines I guess. They might want to point out the device won't help repair the ozone layer.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
More on hurricanes
There is another new paper positing a link between climate change and Atlantic hurricanes. The study, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters next week (available on his website), uses a statistical test called Granger causality to evaluate whether an increase in global temperatures are forcing the increase Atlantic Ocean temperatures (and, in turn, hurricane intensity) or vice versa.
The analysis is on its own not conclusive proof. But it is an interesting addition to the growing literature on the subject. For a news summary, check here.
While the evidence for a climate change and hurricanes link has grown, the good news is that the Atlantic hurricane season has been relatively quiet thus far. Most of the forecasts have been downgraded. For example, William Gray’s forecast now calls for 15 named storms (three so far) and seven hurricanes. The next two months are the heart of the Atlantic hurricane season.
Lest we self-obsessed North Americans forget, hurricanes do happen elsewhere, they just go by other names (typhoons in the N Pacific, cyclones in the S Pacific). The strongest typhoon in 50 years killed over 100 people in China last week. The Asian media has been mentioning a possible link between climate change and an in the strength of typhoons, but like here, the coverage tends to depend on the news source (a pro, a con).
Monday, August 14, 2006
"Mr. Cool"
The weekend edition of the Globe and Mail featured a terrific feature by Charles Montgomery on the shadowy world of Canadian climate "skeptics" like Tim Ball. A must read.
Spreading the wor(l)d
The Climate Project, a program initiated by Al Gore, is looking to train people to deliver a version of his now famous presentation that formed the basis of “An Inconvenient Truth” to community groups. Just fill out an application online.
It is a fine idea. I’ll be curious whether it works well. There’s always the danger that presenters will be seen as propagandists. Or that, with just the one week’s training, some the presenters will not be equipped to answer questions about the science behind climate change or the strengths and pitfalls of different energy solutions. Even after doing a PhD and working in the field for several years, I still get questions I’m not certain how to answer.
The Greenhouse Network, a grassroots organization based at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, has been sponsoring a similar training program for years now. They hold informative and fun volunteer training sessions each year. The participants are expected to return home afterwards and organize presentations to local students, community groups, etc. I’ve always liked the GHN approach. It is more or less based on a training program for civil rights activists in the 1950s and 1960s run by the Highlander Education and Research Center.
This all brings to mind the state of climate “activism”. When I went to GHN workshop a few years ago, the goal was mostly to educate college and university students about some of the basic facts of climate science and climate change. The thought was that, like in the past, campuses are the place to start a grassroots movement. And, no doubt, there has in the years since been a push for energy efficiency and emissions reductions on many college campuses and some lobbying by student groups for a national emissions reduction policy (see here).
Still, I don’t sense nearly the “energy” on college campuses over climate change that there was over issues, whether civil rights, war or even other environmental issues, in the decades past. To be blunt, where are the protests? Whether you think protests are an effective way to effect change, or you think the issue is worthy of such energy, or not, isn’t it surprising that with all the supposed interest in climate change there are not more students are marching in the streets?
Maybe the issue is too different, too complex, too nuanced (it can be said that there is no one “bad guy”, though many on college campuses would be happy to paste a smirking Bush photo on the poster)? Maybe the people most likely to organize such activities are focused on the war in Iraq? Maybe blogs are the sit-ins of the 21st century?
Or maybe the times have just changed, and students are now encouraged to work within the system rather than to challenge the system. Just a thought, feel free to write in and tell me I’m wrong.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
A couple things you can do
Here are a couple web-based energy efficiency campaigns that are easy to join.
Environmental Defense is hoping to get one million light bulbs switched to compact fluorescents. There are already over 110,000 pledges.
Campaign Earth out of Colorado runs a CO2 'challenge of the month' campaign. This month's challenge is an easy sell: reduce the junk mail and catalogs coming to your home. It provides some tips on what to do with all those catalogs and how to stop junk mail at the source.
If you come across other "action" campaigns, let me know.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Who killed the electric car?
Last night, I went to a showing of the surprisingly good documentary “Who killed the electric car?”. I encourage other to go; it is more of a fascinating whodunit than an Michael Moore-esque attack on car and oil companies.
I was not fond of electric car movement in the1990s because, at the time, too many uninformed organizations were overstating the climate benefits of electric vehicles. You’ve probably heard this argument before: if your electricity comes from a coal-burning power station, as is the case across much of the US, charging the car will emit more carbon dioxide than driving a normal car with efficient internal combustion engine. As such, any push for electric vehicles would have more to do with switching from oil, a fuel the US imports, to coal, a fuel the US has in abundance, than addressing climate change.
Nonetheless, I have always found it curious that although some electric cars were produced by GM, Ford and others, I never ever encounter one on the road.
I actually saw a Delorean a few weeks ago. But a GM EV1? Not once.
Where did they go? The movie answers that question, and gives some insight into why Toyota and Honda are passing GM and Ford.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Tradable emissions quotas
To Manchester? That’ll be 10 pounds for the ticket, and 15 kilos of carbon credits.
As I mentioned in passing last week, the British environment secretary David Miliband floated the idea of implementing a personal carbon trading system. The idea is that each person gets an annual carbon allowance. Whenever you buy gas, pay an electrical bill, etc., you would hand over some carbon credits. If you run out of credits, you would have to buy more from the government. The price of the credits would be determined by trading on the government-run market.
The concept itself is not new. Tradable energy quotas (TEQs), also known as domestic trading quotas, were first proposed several years ago by academics in the UK; a bill aimed at raising awareness for the idea was even proposed in the House of Commons.
Most people assume TEQs would work like a progressive carbon tax. The wealthy who consume more energy could buy credits, from a government-run market, in turn, essentially subsidizing people with less-carbon intensive lifestyles. From Miliband’s speech in the House:
“Imagine your neighbourhood. Each neighbour receives the same free entitlement to a certain number of carbon points. The family next door has an SUV and realise they are going to have to buy more carbon points. So instead they decide to trade in the SUV for a hybrid car. They save 2.2 tonnes of carbon each year. They then sell their carbon points back to the bank and share the dividends of environmental growth.
The granny next door doesn’t drive and doesn’t do much air travel. So she has spare carbon points that she can sell. But she doesn’t want to be handling two currencies so she cashes in all her carbon permits as soon as she receives them. When she pays her electricity bill, her energy company builds in the price of carbon to her total bill. She simply pays carbon as she uses it. At the end of the year she finds herself better off.”
For the moment, it is only a proposal. I don’t envision the UK actually enacting a TEQ system in the near future. And I can’t imagine the US or Canada agreeing to issue necessary ID / carbon credit cards to every citizen, let alone agree to further tax personal energy use.
Nevertheless, I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about the idea, even here in Hummer-land. Almost all the N. American environmental organizations promote the importance of both individual action and the market-based mechanisms change, like carbon trading between businesses, states or countries. So where are the environmental organizations on TEQs?
I’m surprised that, at least as a publicity stunt, no group has set up a pilot individual carbon trading program. Issue credits to volunteers, and get them to keep track of their energy bills, fuel use, maybe food purchases, etc. Maybe Chicago Climate Exchange, the home game?
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
More on the Dead Zone
I just returned from a mostly power-less trip to Canada (no computer, no lights, no posting on the blog), and see this news from a colleague in my inbox:
Scientists Eugene Turner and Nancy Rabalais in Lousiana report that the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico has reached a mid-summer size of 17,255 sq. km (6662 sq. mi). This is within 1% of the prediction based on the level of nitrogen in the Mississippi River during the spring.
The Washington Post and other news outlets are reporting, the accuracy of this year's prediction is further evidence that the growth of the Dead Zone is fuelled by nitrogen from the Mississippi River, much of which originates as fertilizer applied to crops in the middle of the U.S. It's goof to see this publicized in the press. I hope readers of the article understand that proof of the Mississippi nitrogen / Gulf hypoxia link lies not in this one accurate forecast, but in the years of study by Turner, Rabalais and many others.
Newspaper editors love to compare the size of the Dead Zone to that of US states. Usually it is New Jersey or Delaware, or a combination of Connecticut and Rhode Island. In a nod to current events, and the power of Google, "almost the size of Israel" now seems to be cropping up.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Climate for July tests positive
The latest data shows last month may have been the warmest July on record in the conterminous U.S. Don't pop open the champagne quite yet, the verdict is not official until after a bit more data crunching, and the results of Floyd Landis' B sample.
The popular media seems almost as giddy to report temperature records as it is to report positive drug tests by popular athletes. On Wednesday, the NY Times had a detailed explanation of the how carbon isotope, or isotope fractionation, is used to determined whether the testosterone in an athlete's blood was synthetic. If such effort went into explaining things like the reconstruction of past climates from ice cores, using similar logic but with oxygen isotopes, maybe the public would have a better appreciation for climate science.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Common sense wilts in the heat
The thermostat is expected to reach 39 C today in Princeton, with a heat index in the mid 40s C.
You can convert that to Fahrenheit here. I’ve decided from now on to report only in Celsius, not out of stubborn Canadian-ness, but because it is absolutely ridiculous this country refuses to adopt the more sensible temperature scale used by the rest of the planet. Er, excuse me, sir, how many furlongs is it to New York?
There are three other aspects of the response to the current heatwave that grate at me:
1. Last week, a group of top hurricane experts on both sides of the global warming debate released statement reminding people that global warming is not the only problem:
“While the debate on this issue is of considerable scientific and societal interest and concern, it should in no event detract from the main hurricane problem facing the United States: the ever-growing concentration of population and wealth in vulnerable coastal regions…. We are optimistic that continued research will eventually resolve much of the current controversy over the effect of climate change on hurricanes. But the more urgent problem of our lemming-like march to the sea requires immediate and sustained attention.”
A similar argument needs to made about the heatwave in eastern North America. With near-record temperatures and many record nighttime temperatures - the second being a staple of climate change predictions - a lot of people want to lay all the blame for what happens as a consequence of the heatwave solely on global warming.
Over a hundred people died in the recent California heat wave, more deaths have been reported as this week's heat swept across the the central US, the northeastern US and southern Canada. And people will probably die as a result of today’s heat, but the coroner will not write global warming on the death certificate. Not because it is impossible to definitely attribute a particular heat wave to a long-term warming trend, but because even if you could, the deaths are still preventable.
The lack of public attention to the danger of heatwaves is the subject of a smart, short article on Slate by Eric Klinenberg, author of the book "Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago" about the 1995 heatwave that claimed 739 lives in Chicago:
“…dangerous heat always comes announced, and it's fairly easy to prevent human damage. Victims of heat tend to wilt gradually, alone and at home, out of touch with family, friends, and social-service providers who could save their lives simply by treating them with water or bringing them to an air-conditioned place.”
The good news is we can learn from past mistakes. Almost 15, 000 people died in France during the 2003 heat wave, mostly elderly without air conditioning and family support. When another (slightly cooler) heat wave struck last month, the French government was ready with a heat awareness plan that included cooling stations, media campaigns and more staff in hospitals. There were still more than 60 deaths across France: hardly forgivable, but a vast improvement over the 2003 disaster.
So we’re in the middle of a heat wave. Is it global warming? Maybe, but right now, even I think that’s wrong question.
2. The radio announcer this morning suggested turning the thermostat up to roughly 25.56 C (again, look it up if you have to) in order to ease pressure on the power grid. The recommendation, coming directly from the local and state government, reflect a complete misunderstanding of the concept of conservation. If you can do that today, why not every day (hello Princeton?)? If you are releasing such a statement, why not mention the energy and cost savings of always keeping you’re a/c set at the higher, but still very comfortable, temperature?
Given the lack of conservation, the one program that makes a bit of sense is the “Peak Saver” started by some city power grids like Toronto Hydro. Basically, they install a switch on your central a/c that the power system flips on and off to help manage electricity demand. You'll barely notice any difference in the household temperature. The Toronto program probably saved the city, which has been hopeless at curbing energy use, from setting a energy use record yesterday.
3. Finally, during heat waves, the public information campaigns need to urge people to cut down on unnecessary car trips. These hot, humid days are naturally susceptible to high smog levels, people should be reminded to not make it any worse.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Monday (noon) mash
Getting caught up on some climate news:
Hurricanes: A paper in last week’s Science suggests the reported trend in hurricane intensity over the past thirty years could be an artefact of changes in the technology used to measure hurricane winds (also see news coverage). It is not disputing the increase in Atlantic Ocean temperatures or the warmer water = fuel for hurricane theory, rather questioning the dependability of the observed wind data. I imagine there’ll be a bit dispute about whether the paper is correct or not. Regardless, it is a good reminder that we always have to think about measurement techniques and how they may have changed over time (the #1 reason sea level rise is probably under-reported in Kiribati).
Dead Zones: Scientists are reporting the growth of a large hypoxic or “dead zone” off the Oregon Coast that is killing fish and other marine life. The emergence of the low-oxygen waters is related to winds and warm weather delivering the nutrients that promote algae production. The difference between this and the Gulf of Mexico “dead zone” is the source of nutrients: in the Gulf, the nutrients come from the Mississippi River, off the Oregon coast, deeper nutrient-rich water is bring brought to the surface.
Climate change and plant life: If you’re interested in the how climate change could affect plant growth and the like, take a look at the series of presentations made available by the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centre for GHG Accounting (which is just now closing up shop after seven years).
Finally, "Mum, can I have a raise in my allowance?": The British Environment Secretary has proposed using trade-able personal carbon emissions ‘allowances’ to reduce emissions (reported in Nature and ENN). It’s a clever idea, but would be a tough sell in North America.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Size of the Dead Zone
The "Dead Zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, the area of low-oxygen waters fuelled by nitrogen from the Mississippi River, is expected to be 17,353 km2 this summer according to scientists at NOAA and a consortium of Louisiana Universities.
The Mississippi dumps a massive amount of nitrogen, largely in the form of the soluble ion nitrate, into the Gulf each spring. It promotes the growth of a lot of algae, which eventually sinks to the bottom and decomposes. This consumes much of the oxygen in the bottom waters, making life tough for bottom-dwelling fish and creatures like shrimp.
The nitrogen mostly comes from farms in the Midwest and central US, particularly from practices like applying lots of fertilizer to corn (you can read a bit about this on my site). But the amount that ends up at the mouth of the Mississippi in a given year also a lot to do with the weather. To put it simply, if it rains very hard in the Corn Belt, more nitrogen leaches out of the soil and runs into the rivers and streams.
The group of scientists is able to roughly forecasts of the extent of hypoxia each year based on the amount of nitrate measured in the Mississippi River during the spring [together with data from the previous year, since nitrogen also gets recycled in the coastal sediments]. My own work is examining whether you can take these forecasts back a step further, by looking at the rainfall in certain places.
The way to combat the Dead Zone is to reduce the input of nitrogen in the Mississippi. It won't be easy. Nitrogen levels probably need to be reduced by 50-60%. That means changing the way crops are grown - something I talked about in the "Surf or Turf" study - and/or embark on an extensive wetland restoration program.
Otherwise, in a given year, there's always a chance that a hurricane will strike the area, and the strong wind and wave action will mix up the waters and replenish the bottom with oxygen (as Ivan did). But let's not hope for that.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Amidst pages of reporting on the insanity in the Middle East, today's NY Times has an op-ed piece by Peter Doran, whose research on Antarctic temperatures trends has been misinterpreted and misused by the media and by those skeptical of climate change for several years (non-subscribers can read it here).
Doran's work reporting cooling in parts of Antarctica and other studies reporting "thickening" of Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have been twisted by groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute to argue that global warming is not a concern (including the very entertaining "CO2 is life" campaign that aired in, hmm, only 14 states, randomly chosen I'm sure).
The NY Times article clears up some of the confusion.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
The greening of Wal-Mart
A good deal of ecology and other “systems sciences” is devoted to understanding if systems (ecosystems, political systems) are controlled from the top down (the top predator, the government) or from the bottom up (the ants, the people, not to sound too Marxist here). Often, it is a bit of both. The government can never be too far ahead of the people, and vice versa.
Which brings me to the “greening” of Wal-Mart, that enemy of small businesses, labour activists, urban planners, environmentalists, and people who simply prefer walking or cycling to the store (it’s exhausting just riding across a Wal-Mart parking lot).
After a couple years of bad press and opinionated documentaries, the retail giant has undertaken a huge sustainability initiative. Before you roll your eyes, think about the numbers. It is the largest retailer in the world and the largest food distributor in the US. A decision by the Wal-Mart executives about not just what the stores sell, but how the company operates, could really transform the energy, food and transportation industries.
An article in the Washington Post provides some of the numbers:
“Wal-Mart has reduced its fuel use 8 percent by preventing its trucks from idling, saving $25 million over the past year while cutting 100,000 metric tons of emissions. It recently began buying organic cotton, and all 3,700 of its U.S. stores are using energy-efficient light bulbs. Wal-Mart is so big that a slight reduction in the packaging of one of its toy lines saved the company $2.4 million last year by cutting trucking costs, while saving 1,000 barrels of oil and 3,800 trees.”
I recommend reading the press release about the experimental superstore recently opened in McKinney, Texas (any Texans out there? I’d love to get a first hand account). The store features a wind turbine, solar panels, an urban forest, a wildflower meadow, pervious pavement (to allow runoff to infiltrate to the soil), water conservation initiatives, etc:
“To supplement the energy this store needs to operate, Wal-Mart has installed a 50-kilowatt wind turbine. The energy it produces will reduce the electricity consumption of this Supercenter by approximately 5 percent–enough energy to power 10 average size homes.”
Ok, it’s just one small turbine, but it makes you think. First, Wal-Mart stores themselves are bloody huge, and reducing their energy use is significant. Second, experiments like this could set an important precedent, for other retailers and for the market as a whole.
Let's say the chain goes full bore in the use and sale of use of energy efficient light bulbs. More will be manufactured, the price will drop, other retailers will also sell them, and in a few years, presto, the curly fry bulbs are the norm.
Personally, I don't like much of what Wal-mart does or represents, the pressure on smaller retailers, the drawing business away from downtown, the support of a car-based culture, the labour practices, etc. There is, however, no denying the huge potential for change when one company, like Wal-Mart, has such a disproportionate influence on our way of life.
Does that mean the system is top-down? The irony is that opposite may be true in this case. The primary reason Wal-Mart embarked on a "sustainability initiative" is that grassroots activism about the company's labour practices and the societal impact of the stores led to lots of bad press and bad financial projections for the company. Those at the top do need to change, no doubt, but perhaps the initiative can come from the people.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Monday morning mash
Lots out there to read today:
The author of the study reporting that “Not a single paper in a large sample of peer-reviewed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 refuted the consensus position (on climate change)” defends herself and the study from attacks in the LA Times.
It’s good to see Reuters CNN address the oft-asked and always unanswerable question “is the heatwave due to climate change?” even if they still quote someone from the George C Marshall Institute (like you can’t ask an actual scientist to explain the difference between a one-off event and a trend?). The “heatwave” in question is really a series of heatwaves (in Europe and much of the Midwest and western US).
The media response is inspired in part by the latest NOAA climate update reporting that the first half of 2006 was the warmest in the US since records began in the 1890s. Exact rankings, which year was #1, are not really important, but almost every media organization botched the story… missing that Jan-June was the warmest ever in just the US, but the sixth-warmest worldwide.
And, if you’re interesting in the ongoing argument about the “hockey stick”, check out this post on realclimate last week. Frankly, I find the constant discussion and re-analysis of the 1000-year temperature reconstruction graph ridiculous, especially after the NAS report. Besides, even if there were a couple decades in the 1300s that were 0.2 Celsius warmer than the 1990s, that does not change the avalanche of evidence that the recent warming is in large part human-induced, and that it will accelerate without an effort to seriously reduce GHG emissions. Even Edward Wegman himself, the author of the latest report, basically agrees.
Friday, July 21, 2006
C'mon, you can say it, cli-mate ch-an-ge
The Congress plans to investigate whether Bush appointees edited of government reports on the scientific evidence for climate change. It's about time. From the NY Times:
"A House committee will examine accusations that political appointees in the Bush administration edited government reports on global warming to raise the level of uncertainty about research that points to a human cause. The Republican and Democratic leaders on the Government Reform Committee sent a letter to the White House Council on Environmental Quality requesting documents by Aug. 11 on the activities of Philip A. Cooney, a former lobbyist for the petroleum industry with no science background who edited climate reports while chief of staff of the environmental council. Mr. Cooney resigned last year shortly after the revisions were described in The New York Times."
ABC news also has a story about the climate change goings on in Washington. For the most part, it is terribly written and edited, an embarrassment for a major news organization ("Scientists told the House committee that humans are causing most of the earth's warming and the planet is 8 degrees to 10 degrees hotter than it was thousands of years ago."... uh, yeah, that was the last ice age... safe bet the scientists were arguing humans ended it). But the story does raise one important point about the future emissions from the many new coal-burning power plants that in the works. There are two important lags in slowing climate change. One, that the emissions today affect the atmosphere for some time. Second, that you can't change the energy infrastructure overnight. I'm surprised people aren't screaming more about the need to integrate carbon capture and storage technology into these new plants.
Also in politics, the Canadian government has put together a new environmental strategy that will be announced in the fall. The report in the Globe claims the new strategy will address smog-forming pollutants, greenhouse gases and adaptation to climate change. I'm skeptical that the Harper government will put together a plan with any teeth (i think the Globe editors are as well, given the sarcastic "thorny green issues" in the headline). After all, this is the government that recently removed all references to "climate change" from the official government climate change site (the new text is downright comical, like something out of the Onion; you can read more about this on desmogblog). But, hey, nothing I'd like more than to be wrong about this.
The one good thing Canadians can take out of this mess: in that in the effort to appear more environmental (and have a chance at a majority in the next election), the Harper government will at least take real action on smog-forming pollutants and perhaps some other environmental concerns. Climate change, well, I'd think to put together a policy, you must be willing to use the words.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Atlas of the changing environment
The UN Environment Programme released this really amazing collection of presentations about global environmental change called "One Planet, One People: Atlas of the Changing Environment". The terrific collection of satellite imagery, aerial photos and figures depicting of environmental change can be viewed on the website (and downloaded free of charge).
I strongly recommend taking a look. My favourites are "Water and Lakes" (no surpise) with the before and after images from places like Lake Chad, the Dead Sea and the Marshlands in Iraq, the "North America" slideshow, with images depicting the sprawl of Las Vegas, oil drilling near Fort McMurray, Alberta (the tar sands) and what snow geese have done to the shoreline of Hudson's Bay, and the "Latin America" slideshow depicting the extent of deforestation in central and South America.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Canadian PM Stephen Harper - or Steve, as President Bush called him last week, to the consternation of Harper's mother - has stumbled upon a short explanation of his government's approach to Kyoto.
I'd call it a "talking point", if I did not hate that term for further greasing the side of politics towards nothing more than marketing (seriously, you use "talking points" when working the sales floor at a stereo store, not when discussing international policy). Anyway, here's one wording of Harper's explanation, from the G8 summit:
"We [Canada and the UK] don't differ on the philosophy of climate change. Our differences are the facts that our two countries are presented with," he told a news conference with Blair.
"Prime Minister Blair's government has taken steps over the years to reach its targets. The previous (Liberal) government of Canada did not do that and has put us in a position where they're not attainable. That doesn't mean we're abandoning the process. Canada is fully engaged."
The political equivalent of a child's 'not my fault, he started it.'
The funny thing is, on the surface, it's not a bad argument. Canada is in a difficult position because the Chretien government chose a target without proper consultation with the provinces and then made a lame effort to meet that target.
The problem is that the refusal of the now-ruling Conservative party to support action on Kyoto and emissions reductions in the past is a prime reason it became so difficult to meet the targets. It is like wasting tons of time complaining there you cannot finish some work before a deadline, then when it is not finished, saying, see, I told you we couldn't finish it.
If the government were truly "engaged" in the process, they would not have cancelled the existing emissions reductions programs and they would have developed a national greenhouse gas emissions reductions plan. Instead, the PM's statement is empty rhetoric.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Betting on climate
In a country enamoured with poker (next on ESPN: the World Series of Go Fish) and the almighty, er, once-mighty dollar, the idea of betting on global warming was inevitable. If you can lay a bet in Vegas on no only who will win the Super Bowl, but who will win the coin toss at the Super Bowl, it is only a matter of time before bookmakers are taking odds on the year a wave first makes it right across Funafuti Atoll.
As far as I know, the bookies aren't taking bets yet. But some financial heavy hitters are gambling on warm, catastrophic weather this summer.
Bloomberg news reported last week that hedge funds are now investing heavily in hurricane-related catastrophe bonds sold by insurance companies, which are looking to raise money after last year’s rough hurricane season. In other words, predicting a lot of Atlantic hurricane damage could make some people a lot of money.
I love this Gordon Gekko-ish quote from a hedge fund manager: "Our expert models tell us last year's estimates of hurricane risk need to be raised by 50 percent. That outlook is a great opportunity."
This is creepy even for a hedge fund, which from my rudimentary understanding of the investment world already lean just a bit toward the wrong end of the charitable-donation / mugging-an-elderly-woman-in-a-wheelchair continuum. Are investors out cheering reports of anomalously warm mid-Atlantic ocean temperatures?
Friday, July 14, 2006
Global warming documentary on Sunday
The documentary "Global Warming: What You Need to Know", hosted by Tom Brokaw, is on the Discovery Channel on Sunday night at 9 pm (anyone here have cable?). It features interviews with a number of scientists including Michael Oppenheimer and Steve Pacala from Princeton, footage from the Arctic, the Andes and the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu, and discussion of what the average person can do to reduce emissions.
I'm glad to see more global warming films on television, though I must admit they can make me feel for the Tuvaluans for a reason other than climate change. If the threat of rising seas was not enough, the Tuvaulans have to deal with all the writers, reporters, photographers and camera crews all hoping to capture life on world's lowest lying country. Don't be fooled by the images in the documentary: the main atolls of place like Tuvalu and Kiribati are not ideal tropical vacation spots. Yes, they are palm-lined islands fringed by colourful reefs. They are also hot, crowded, narrow strips of land with few resources, few amenities and even fewer places to dispose of waste (the photo is a beach in Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati). You need to treat traveling to a Pacific atoll the way you should a national park: tread softly and pack out what you pack in. I'm very glad to see the plight of the small island nations in the Pacific publicized on TV. I just hope the film crew picked up after themselves.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
More on "surf or turf"
As someone who rarely if ever eats meat, and has done research on how vegetarian diets are better for the environment, I'm often expected to be a staunch defender of animal rights.
I’m not. The “surf or turf” study I mention below offers a utilitarian argument for reducing beef consumption. Most of the beef available in North America is grain fed, and less efficient, in terms on energy required and pollution created, to produce.
I have no problem eating well-produced grass-fed beef or wild game (in fact I would not complain if someone culled the flocks of geese that ruin the grass behind my apartment)… though having only eaten a few morsels of meat in the last year, my stomach might protest.
If you’re interested in the different sides of these and other issues, I suggest reading this old interview with Peter Singer, an ethicist and writer at Princeton, in Salon about his book “The way we eat”.
While I don’t agree with many of Singer’s arguments equating animal and human rights - you can probably guess which ones – they are always good for inspiring a lively debate. At a dinner/debate a few months ago, I made an inflammatory comment about the hypocrisy of one of the ethicists’ criticism of meat eating that drew the ire of the room (along the lines of “you oppose eating meat only because you can see it, the steak is there on the plate; no one is complaining about the building we’re in replacing the habitat of many species, nor how the road you drove in on interrupts wildlife corridors; it’s not a pure argument for animals rights, it’s a way of assuaging misplaced guilt”). Thankfully ethicists tend to be non-violent.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Surf or turf?
The university issued a press release this morning about my research into how shifting away from meat production could help alleviate the pollution that causes the "Dead Zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. Take a look! The paper - "Surf or turf: A shift from feed to food cultivation could reduce nutrient flux to the Gulf of Mexico" - was published (online early) last week in the journal Global Environmental Change.
Why the shift in subjects? For my PhD thesis, I studied how the climate and land use (forest? corn-soybean rotation? wheat?) impact the loading of nitrogen into the Mississippi River and eventually into the Gulf of Mexico. The nitrogen in Mississippi River waters fuels the development of a large hypoxic zone, an area of extremly low-oxygen waters, in the Gulf each summer.
Among the conclusions from that research, is that the majority of the nitrogen comes from fertilizer applied in the central US, largely to corn. Most of the corn and other grains grown in the central US are sold for animal feed. It got me to thinking about the old adage that "eating closer to the sun" is better for the environment. The argument is that takes less energy (and causes less pollution) to raise a gram of vegetable protein, than beef protein, because of the various inefficiencies in the animal production chain.
I decided to do a quantitative test. Could shifting from feed to food production reduce nitrogen losses enough to minimize the size of the hypoxic zone? From there, I looked at a shift in diet and food production could be integrated with a more feasible nutrient management policy. The results was this study... and the end of years as a regular meat-eater.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Jim Hansen's "Threat to the Planet"
James Hansen from NASA has an article called "Threat to the Planet", ostensibly a review of the three recent climate change books The Weather Makers (Tim Flannery), Field Notes from a Catastrophe (Elizabeth Kolbert) and An Inconvenient Truth (Al Gore), in last week's NY Review of Books.
If you are not familiar with this weekly publication, it consists of analysis of topical (climate change, terrorism) or arcane (mid-18th century Prussian dance) subjects by leading scholars, disguised as reviews of new books. Though some of the articles are little more than intellectual chest-thumping that just screams for parody, others contain some of the best analysis of leading political issues.
In "The Threat to the Planet", which follows the tradition of barely mentioning the books being reviewed, Hansen articulates an important point about the need for both conservation and technology:
"To achieve the alternative scenario [slow/stop climate change] will require prompt gains in energy efficiencies so that the supply of conventional fossil fuels can be sustained until advanced technologies can be developed."
Those critical of conservation or energy efficiency measures as a central part of climate change mitigation should remember this point. Advanced energy technologies will be the long-term solution. We can probably all agree on that. However, given the time it will take to develop and implement such technologies, and the short time we have to begin serious emissions reductions in order to avoid dangerous changes in climate, conservation and energy efficiency measures are crucial in the short-term.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Sometime in the past year, whether due to Hurricane Katrina, a flood of new research, exasperation with the Bush Administration, the reception of climate change science changed dramatically. Global warming is happening, in every sense of the word.
It is heartening to see the subjcte receieve so much attention and especially to see new research now widely reported about in the popular press. Every week, some new research, about hurricanes or temperature records or tropical circulation or the vulnerability of coral reefs, bounces around the wire services and garners headlines in the daily papers.
There is some danger in the popularization of science. Critics of the particular research might argue that the scientists themselves being compromised by the chance at fame [hardly, the fame is pretty minor and fleeting, it’ll be a long time before we start seeing average post-docs on Letterman]. I'd argue the science itself is more likely to be compromised by media constraints.
The main challenge for scientists explaining their research to the press or the public is the sound-bite. Your two year study? We are told to boil it down to one pithy statement. So we respond by working with the public relations office at the university or research centre when a newsworthy research paper is published (e.g., to write press releases), or in some cases, to attend media-training seminars.
The problem with sound-bites of climate science is that they will often overstate the certainty in the findings. They then become politicized. The news clippings or remarks can get picked up by environmental or activist organizations, who may inflate the remarks. This makes easy fodder for the people commonly referred to as climate skeptics*. This is writ large on the blogosphere, which can operate like a large game of broken telephone, resulting in twisted interpretations of the science. The word “blogosphere” itself sounds like a ride at an amusement park, which, in many ways, it is (riding is not recommended for pregnant women, people with heart conditions, children under the age of 12, or fans of objectivity). This is part of the reason I started this site, why sites like realclimate.org are so valuable, and, in my mind at least, why we need to work heard to increase scientific literacy.
* For the record, while I find the arguments of most people skeptical of climate change un-scientific and clearly biased, I hate the cultish connotations, and the spelling of, the term “climate skeptic”. Yes, the overwhelming majority of the people publicly skeptical of climate change are not climate scientists and are either supported by industries with a vested interest, like coal and oil, or employ arguments framed by those supported by those industries. But the labeling of people makes the rest of us look petty and threatened.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Senator John Kerry delivered a strong speech about energy policy and global warming yesterday. Even if Kerry is merely ante-ing up on the issue (Al Gore's film, a speech by Hillary Clinton the week the film was released, but of course, no coincidence there), it is a terrific speech (text) and actual contains specific policy recommendations. Now, if only, a candidate can speak like this during an actual presidental election.
In the speech, Kerry mentions a "new" finding about temperature trends over the past 400 years. He is referring to the National Academy of Sciences report on the famous "hockey stick" graph, discussed below.
Last week, the US National Academy of Sciences published a long-awaited report on the "hockey stick". No, the report has nothing to do with the Stanley Cup finals, though feel free to draw a climate change metaphor from the Carolina Hurricanes beating the Edmonton Oilers.
The "hockey stick" is the famous graph depicting global temperatures over the past 1000 years; the blade of the stick is the upswing in temperatures since the Industrial Revolution.
The graph was originally produced from the instrumental temperature record (since 1860) and a collection of temperature proxies -- ice cores, tree rings, etc. -- for the period before widespread temperature measurements are available. It shows that the end of the 20th century was warmer than any other time in the past 1000 years. The authors of the original study also concluded that the 1990s was likely the warmest decade of the millenium, and that 1998 was likely the warmest year of the millenium.
The hockey stick has been the subject of legitimate - and much illegitimate - controversy. Many people skeptical of climate change have criticized, attacked may be more accurate, the methods used to reconstruct temperatures, especially for the period known as the Medieval Warm period (around 1000 AD).
At the request of the federal government, the NAS poured over the data. The report agrees with the general results of the original papers (you can read it all here):
"It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries... Less confidence can be palced in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period from A.D. 900 AD. Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since A.D. 900."
The one flaw, I hesitate to use that word since I am not a statistical climatologist, seems to be the argument that the 1990s may have been the warmest decade and that 1998 may have been the warmest year. Both statements are highly likely to be true. However, there is not fine enough resolution in the temperature reconstructions to definitely support such conclusions.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Hurricanes and climate change
Two new studies point to a strong link between the observed increase in Atlantic hurricane activity and human-induced climate change (the image is tropical storm Alberto on June 13). The basic concept is the same as suggested before: climate change is increasing sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the tropical Atlantic, and the higher temperatures contribute to more intense and possibly more frequent storms. These new studies drive home the point.
The first study, by hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel and climatologist Michael Mann published in the journal EOS last week, challenges the notion that the upswing in Atlantic hurricane activity is due solely to natural climate cycles. Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the north Atlantic tend to oscillate over a 60-80 year period, called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), probably due to internal variability in the thermohaline circulation (a part of the ocean “conveyor belt” often mentioned in climate stories and described in An Inconvenient Truth). Scientists often attribute the variability in hurricane activity in the past, especially the increase in recent decades, to this natural cycle. Emanuel and Mann use historical data to show that the increasing trend in Atlantic SSTs is more than an upswing in the AMO, and is likely to be caused by human-induced climate change. They add that it is possible that the emissions of aerosols (NOx, SOx, etc), which lead to regional cooling, may have masked even more warming.
Emanuel originally presented these ideas at the same meeting last fall where a speech by NASA scientist Jim Hansen's drew the ire of government officials [and led to all that news coverage of attempts to quiet government scientists]. During the presentation, Emanuel expressed concern that the line "changes in hurricane activity are due to natural cycles, not global warming" was appearing in every news story about Hurricane Katrina because government scientists were not permitted to say otherwise. The comment drew a round of applause, pretty much unheard of at a scientific meeting.
The second study, by Kevin Trenberth and Dennis Shea at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, estimates the contribution of different factors to the increase in Atlantic SSTs (see the press release). They find that human-induced climate change is responsible for almost half increase in SSTs that fuelled the strong 2005 hurricane season (difference between last fall and the 1901-1970 average). Like the Emanuel and Mann paper, they find the AMO has had less influence on the recent rise in Atlantic SSTs than previously suspected.
Neither of the studies is claiming any particular storm was caused by global warming. Climate science always comes down to probabilities. In the case of hurricanes, warmer waters increase the probability that a tropical depression will grow into a hurricane (simplistic explanation, yes, many other factors like vertical wind shear are obviously important too). You could think of all these climate studies and forecasts like advice from your doctor. For example, say the doctor tells you to quit smoking. The doctor knows that smoking won't absolutely ensure you'll get lung cancer. Even if it did, the doctor couldn't possibly tell you exactly when or where the cancer would form. But the doctor knows the science, knows the statistics, and concludes smoking will dramatically worsens your odds.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Climate of fear
The BBC News 4 show Panorama recently had a show called "Bush's climate of fear" that investigated how the US government under the Bush Administration has attempted to squash scientific evidence for climate change. You can watch the entire program online here.
It is worth watching for the good interviews with a number of US government scientists [including a colleague who works on climate and hurricane activity] and the fingernails-on-the-blackboard interview with James Connaughton, Bush's senior advisor on environmental policy.
The show itself appears opinionated, not-so-subtly and not-so-fairly suggesting that the Bush Administration alone is responsible for global warming (the treatment of Texas in particular is unfair). That is, however, another reason to watch. The fact that this program was on the BBC demonstrates just how low the opinion of the Bush Administration's treatment of climate change, and science in general, is in the rest of the world.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Blogging again
Upon returning from holiday, I planned to write a bit about Kiribati, the Pacific island nation where I've done some field work, and source of the word "maribo". It turns out, the forgotten country has actually been in the news.
You may have come across headlines about an international vote on commercial whaling (here's a whale photo I shot years ago while trying to block out the sounds of all the sick people on the boat). At the International Whaling Commission annual meeting this weekend, a narrow majority of 70 member nations led by Japan voted to overturn the 20 year old ban on commerical whaling. That is well short of the two-thirds majority necessary to overturn the ban (which explains the confusing headlines) but represents a big shift from the past.
Under the ban, catching whales is permitted only for some indigenous peoples in the Arctic and for "scientific research". Three countries argure that some whale populations (like the minke) have been recovering defy the ban: Norway, which ignores the ban entirely, and Japan and Iceland, which use the research loophole to continue whaling. Japan is now pushing the questionable argument that whale numbers have recovered so much that commerical whaling is necessary to maintain fish stocks.
Here's where Kiribati comes in. It is one of a few Pacific island nations, also including Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands, to join the IWC in recent years and support Japan's effort to end the ban. People are suspicious the votes of these poor nations are being "bought".
One of the things a visitor to the western Pacific island nations, like Kiribati, will notice is the many Japanese and Taiwanese funded development projects. Kiribati covers a huge swath of the Pacific and lots of prime fishing grounds; it is also a very poor country, per capita GDP of around $700/person. Many have been suspicious that a bit of financial assistance can go a long way to securing fishing rights. Why Taiwan? Take a look at the list of countries that recognize Taiwan as an independent nation. It is as bizarre as the coalition of the willing.
Under the IWC, each member nation gets one vote, regardless of size of the country or number of inhabitants. So if you are Japan, the sparsely populated island countries like Kiribati and Tuvalu seem like ideal places to search for a vote, no?
Tetabo Nakara, the Kiribati Fisheries Minister and a pretty nice guy, denies the accusation that his country's vote was bought. Sure, no one really believes there was a straight-up bribe. But it is very likely that and other nations like Tuvalu and the Solomons were swayed by trust in Japan, derived in large part from the financial aid, and the Japanese argument that the ban on whaling threatens fish stocks.
I'm not a whale ecologist or expert. I can't tell you whether or not there are some legitimate scientific arguments in support of at least limited whaling. I can tell you, though, that this vote does not look so clean.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Recycling tips
The incredibly useful article "How to Recycle Practically Anything: Old Myths are Shattering and New Options Come Online" in the May/ June issue of E! The Environment Magazine begins like this:
Don't throw away those exercise videos and ubiquitous AOL CDs. Jim Williams wants you to mail old videotapes and CDs to him, so that more than 40 disabled staffers at his ACT Recycling in Columbia, Missouri can recycle them. And, oh, don't toss out those used Fed-Ex envelopes or broken smoke detectors; their manufacturers take them back for recycling.
Read the article online. Afterwards, I bet you'll decide to tack a copy to the fridge.
Friday, June 02, 2006
The meaning of consensus
Scientists often talk of there being a "consensus" on global warming. Al Gore addresses this issue directly in An Inconvenient Truth by citing a 2004 study on the extent of agreement among scientists.
The study by Naomi Oreskes, published in Science, examined all the peer-reviewed scientific journal articles between 1993 and 2003 in which the abstract contained the phrase "global climate change". The search was conducted using the Web of Science, a popular search engine used by scientists for surveying the popular literature.
Of the 928 papers she found, not one was skeptical of the notion that "most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations", to quote the IPCC. In other words, every single paper supported the general idea that the emissions of greenhouse gases due to human activity is influencing the climate.
For fun, I did my own search. During that same time period, there were eight peer-reviewed scientific papers supporting "distance healing", that is, having someone else, without your knowledge, pray for your health; one paper with evidence for the existence of “psi”, alternative means of transfering information like telepathy; and another arguing that the "sense of being stated at" is a result of extrasensory perception". A lot of nutty stuff. But not one paper that used the phrase "global climate change" that was sceptical of the evidence for human-induced climate change.
I won't claim that Oreskes' study is perfect. Change the search terms, for example use just "climate change", and you will find a few papers examining previous climate changes in the geological past that may be sceptical about the extent of the human role in today's changing climate. The sceptics are still a very very small minority. The take-home message is, however you cut it, the consensus is overwhelming.
For years now, media coverage has wrongly presented the two "sides" of the debate as equal, thanks in large part to lobbying by special interests like the oil and coal industry and the tendency in popular journalism to devote equal space and time to both sides of an issue. We are just now seeing the mainstream press, like USA Today, accept that there really is an incredibly strong consensus on the issue. So if you ever are irritated that some scientists or environmentalists seem to be trying to sell the science of climate change to the public in an almost political way, try to understand that the experts in this field have only resorted to such tactics because for years they were forced to swim upstream, to see the true state of the scientific agreement misrepresented to the public.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
A real opening day
An Inconvenient Truth opens nationwide today (see my mini-review). A satirical take on the film from the Onion:
Critics Blast Al Gore's Documentary As 'Realistic'
May 31, 2006 NEW YORK— The Al Gore-produced global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth is being panned by critics nationwide who claim the 90-plus minute environmental film is "too disturbingly realistic and well-researched to enjoy." "I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief in man-made climate change for the first half-hour—and utterly impossible after that—which makes for a movie-going experience that's far more educational than it is enjoyable," said New York Post film critic Skip Hack. "Gore's film overwhelms viewers with staggering amounts of scientific information until nothing about global warming is left to the imagination, and that's just not good entertainment. Two stars." Some critics have called the film's claims that sea levels could rise 20 feet somewhat sensationalistic, although most agree that this is not enough to save the film from being unwatchably factual.
It is a shame Skip Hack isn't the real NY Post film critic. The Post's actual review is a bizarre attack on Gore and a diatribe about taxes. I don't know what movie the reviewer was watching.
Opening day??
The Atlantic hurricane season "opens" today. It has been promoted in the press like opening day of the baseball season, as if the president is scheduled to throw out the first water bottles to a stadium packed of storm-ravaged residents of Miami.
To mark the occasion, protesters have been gathered outside NOAA Headquarters in DC to demand "NOAA stop covering up the growing scientific link between severe hurricanes and global warming while insisting on real solutions to the problem of global warming". Here's the press release.
I'm as mad as anyone about the US government quieting scientists, especially with reference to news reports last fall that claimed there is no link at all between changes in hurricane intensity and climate change. I also think protests can be effective.
But in the word of my friend Howard Berger, who works in tropical meteorology and forwarded the press release, a little knowledge can be dangerous.
My fear is that this group and many in the press are now being a bit loose with the science and may contribute to some unrealistic expectations.
Let's get one thing straight. There will not be any hurricanes today. There may not be any all month or for two months. This is weather and climate, we can make predictions, but we can’t print out a 162-game schedule for every town and city.
Yes, there is even more science – reported this week in the NY Times, the Toronto Star and other places – linking human-induced warming of sea surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic to hurricane development. Most climate models agree that the observed warming in the tropical Atlantic can only be explained if you consider the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The new argument is that tropical depressions and storms have, on average, been forming further to the east, such that they are passing over more of the warming ocean water, increasing the likelihood the storm develops into a strong hurricane. The science is still not definitive. And even if it were, it will not tell us exactly what will happen this year, next year or in any particular year.
The tragedy of Katrina and the news of a plausible climate change - hurricane link have thankfully led to more awareness of the destructive power of the tropical storms and hurricanes. They have also led to a ridiculous media feeding frenzy, like we are all watching the NASCAR race just for the crashes, to the point that if there are no destructive hurricanes this year, rather than celebrate the lives not lost and the homes not destroyed, people outside of vulnerable costal regions will be disappointed and maybe even start screaming that global warming is a hoax.
