Climate Change News
Thursday, December 11, 2008
(Kitchen Table Climate Study Group)
The Atlantic hurricane season of 2008 set 5
records, including the first time 5
consecutive storms hit the US mainland and the
first time a major hurricane formed in 5
consecutive months of the hurricane
season. For information on the increasing
risk from hurricanes for the East coast, see
the fine short article from the National
Wildlife Federation. (If this link doesn't
work go here and scroll down to the
link about hurricanes.)
The Bush administration has pushed through
regulations for the commercial development of oil shale on
federal lands (some quite close to the
magnificent Canyonlands and Arches National
Parks in southeastern Utah), even though such
development would be many years away. See
also this NYT
article.
Obama's stance on the use
of federal lands promises to be quite
different from the that of the Bush
administration and perhaps that will make a
difference.
Obama plans to move quickly toward a clean-energy economy, while
addressing global warming in spite of
the troubled economy, which may slow down the move to
renewable energy. Will it be possible to
save the planet and the
economy at the same time? Perhaps so
if more investment funds (pension funds)
adopt green portfolios.
The huge meeting in Poland Dec.
1-12 to review progress towards a new UN
Climate treaty by 2012 will be the Bush
administration's last chance to do the right
thing. Some progress seems to have been
made on an agreement to reward developing countries for
halting deforestation, which accounts for
20% of GHG pollution. See also here. Sadly, deforestation in the
Amazon was up in 2008. Meanwhile European leaders cannot agree
on emissions targets and China refuses to agree to
limits until the US has stated its
position.
California has mandated that GHG emissions
be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020. Now
the Air Resources Board is set to
release what has been called the "nation's most ambitious global
warming plan."
James Hansen, NASA's outspoken climate
scientist, has posted an article about telling Obama the truth about
climate change. Joseph Romm, author of
Hell and High Water, has responded,
saying Hansen has the science right but the energy
policy wrong, and Andy Revkin at DotEarth
discusses their points of
view.
Measurements of ocean heat content should
roughly match measurements of the net
gain of heat by the earth, as measured from
satellites. Until recent corrections to data
sets, this was not the case, and the data
seemed to indicate that the oceans
had actually been cooling during the last
few years. Needless to say, this provided
great talking points for climate change
skeptics. The link above is to an
informative article from NASA's Earth
Observatory that describes how the errors
were discovered and
corrected.
You'll soon be hearing much talk about how
global warming is not real and, if it is, too
expensive to fix. Remember that most
of the citizens of the world consider the
problem of climate change more important
than the economic crisis. Sadly the
one industrialized county where the fewest
people feel that way is the United States of
America. Go here for the
details. Way to go Georgie!
Meanwhile, US scientists have developed a
low cost way to harness power from slowly
moving river and ocean currents that has the
potential to provide electrical power for the
whole world.
And, it's about time, too. A new
study says that because the upper layers of the
oceans are becoming saturated with CO2 there
will be less absorption and the CO2 put
into the atmosphere now and the
excess warmth it produces will be around for thousands
of years.
Here's an informative article about geothermal systems for heating
and cooling that can save up to 40-60% on
the costs. Wikipedia has a
detailed article about geothermal heat pumps.
And, what about solar power? Does
making solar panels produce large amounts of
GHG emissions? According to this article
at LiveScience.com the answer is "No!
Did you know that there is an increase in
atmospheric methane (a powerful greenhouse gas)
every Fall in the northern hemisphere.
Scientists now have discovered its source: the annual
re-freezing of the Arctic tundra squeezes out
bubbles of methane that developed during the
summer months.
President-elect Obama is reported (go here and here) to be very close
to appointing the major players for his
energy/climate team. Carol M. Browner ("a
disciple of Al Gore") as the top White House
official for climate, Lisa P. Jackson (head of
NJ's environemental agency with 16
years experience at the EPA) as head
of EPA, Dr. Steven Chu (a noble prize
winning physicist who favors controlling GHG
emissions) for head of DOE, and Nancy
Sutley (Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles
and former assistant to Mrs. Browner) as
the head of the White House Council of
Environmental Quality.
And, finally, what's your opinion of
whether or not human activities have forced the
planet into a new geologic era, the
Anthropocene? Is it time to kiss the
Holocene epoch (this interglacial period, up
to now) and its relative climate
stability goodbye
