Environment and Climate Change

Just listened to episode #101 of The Kunstler Cast http://kunstlercast.com/ and he has some really good things to say about the twin threats of peak oil and climate change (and the third one - economic instability). Both of these issues are a key part of why I am working on adoption of electric vehicles, and why we have this very site in front of us. In any case I really like what he has to say in this recording:

'The global warming guerrillas' in the January, 6, 2010,edition of Spectator by Matt Ridley,( www.spectator.co.uk/essays/.../the-global-warming-guerrillas.thtml - )

This article concerns the dramatic rise of climate change scepticism as a result of revelations of increasing evidence of scientific fraud and 'spin' to create a false illusion of consensus among 'climate change scientists.' If the powerful appearance of consensus among scientists is discredited in public opinion, and regarded as the product of fraud and conspiracy, then a media backlash is predictable. In fact, considering the fanatically extravagant claims by extreme environmentalist activists, along with the intolerant and intimidating tactics employed to silence 'heretics', and critics, the resultant backlash may have just as extreme repercussions!

But where does this leave the fledgling EV industry? What effect will political and media disillusionment of climate change science, have on investment within the EV industry?

Will Governments, Bankers and Investors be so anxious to promote EV development, if there are no votes in a carbon free future? If environmental issues are discredited in public perception, investment dynamics will alter accordingly.

Unfortunately, most of the EV industry's best supporters have insufficient funds to support the loss of major institutional risk capital.

I think a new thread is in order, since this is really a change of topic. For the purpose of this thread, let's make the simplifying assumption that the core climate science presented in the most recent IPCC report is entirely correct.

As davew said, it's going to be far cheaper to prevent change than it is to mop up afterwords. And, just as importantly, the sooner we act to prevent change, the less expensive action will be. It's kinda like we are all in a large bus driving towards a cliff. Right now, the driver has his foot on the accelerator, and the bus is speeding up. The sooner we get him to take his foot of the gas, and start applying the brake, the easier it'll be to slow down before hitting the cliff. But if we can't convince the driver to stop accelerating, then basic physics starts to make a disaster inevitable: after a point, you simply can't brake hard enough to stop in time.

So, I'm going to start talking about prevention, and then come back to adaptation. We have to stop increasing the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and then we need to start reducing that concentration from whatever the peak level reached to a safer level. To achieve that, there's a million different things that need to be done, and I think we need to do a little bit of all of them. However, 2/3rd of those million things become much easier if we start with two basic changes:

First, we have to put a $$ price on greenhouse gas emissions (mostly carbon dioxide and methane). This should be blatantly obvious, but people are resisting for all sorts of silly reasons. As I see it, you have to pay a fee/fine if you pollute the oceans, you pay a fee/fine if you pollute rivers & streams, you even pay a fee to dump your trash into a landfill. Why should dumping pollution into the atmosphere somehow be free? There are arguments about a cap & trade system vs a simple carbon tax, and the arguments are worthwhile on both sides, but we can come back to that.

As soon as you put a higher price on carbon emissions, then all sorts of changes gain a big economic advantage. Clean energy (wind, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, hydro, geothermal, wave, biomass, landfill methane, etc) all become cost competitive over dirty energy, and the conversion starts immediately. In addition to making clean energy, people also become more willing to spend money on using less energy, meaning that efficiency takes off. We could actually halt all increases in energy use in this country right now, never needing a brand new power plant (replacement construction only), if we just took some basic steps towards efficiency, both in transportation and in building energy use. (California has already done this, halting energy consumption increases with no obvious penalty to economic growth.)

The second big change that we need to make, and this is a much harder one to manage, is to work towards 'sustainable' population levels. Right now, we can't quite feed everyone on the planet, and a warming and more chaotic climate will only make that harder. The fundamental inequality of wealth isn't going to be fixed anytime soon, so we're essentially guaranteed that there will be increasing hardship and death from famine and water shortages. Increases in agricultural production are not likely or sustainable, wealthy populations will never give up eating meat, and decreases in raw crop yields appear inevitable. At some point down the line, population is either going to crash hard or be reduced gracefully, and I'd much rather see gracefully.

How do you actually manage world populations? War is the cheap and easy way, but I don't consider that to be a moral solution. The moral way is actually education and financial opportunity for women. We have to promote legal and social equality for women worldwide, and try to reduce the frequency of endemic poverty. The natural result of treating women better has always been a reduction in population growth, not to mention the fact that they lead much more enjoyable lives. And happier women always translates into happier men, so everyone wins.

NASA has supplied the best data to date on the state of antarctic ice. They have been measuring the mass of the content since 2002. What they have found is every year since 2002 the continent has a whole has been losing mass. They have also concluded that the rate of mass loss is accelerating.

This is why space is so cool. Instead of taking a bunch of diverse ground data and trying to stick it together with math, they just went ahead and weighed the continent. Ground science is still important for looking into causes and mechanisms, but nothing beats a direct measurement.

There are also satellites measuring global temperatures for both the air and the ocean. Hopefully this data in a similar fashion will be the gold standard for direct measurement of global climate change.

Scientists have identified some geological feature in the Antarctic that, combined with already rising sea levels, will cause a sudden collapse sometime in the not-so-distant future. They've identified two specific glaciers in west antarctic that are way past their tipping point beyond which collapse is unavoidable. Their estimate is 50% collapse within the next 100 years.

Collapse of glaciers into the ocean causes sea level rise. The melting of sea ice does not cause sea level rise.

http://www.7gen.com/blog/david-herron/major-antarctic-glacier-risk-major-collapse-past-its-tipping-point

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18383-major-antarctic-glacier-is-past-its-tipping-point.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=climate-ch...

http://theenergycollective.com/TheEnergyCollective/56558

Copenhagen Won't Be Enough -- Only a 'Human Movement' Can Save Civilization from the Climate Crisis

...

A child under 13 today can expect to live into the 2080s, by which time civilization as we know it will have disappeared if we continue to fail to reduce carbon emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80 percent by 2050, according to our climate scientists. Although world leaders accept this recommendation, they are presently overseeing a steady increase projected to be more than double the maximum our climate scientists think safe.

The stark figures reveal just how much Copenhagen will fail our children, despite PR efforts to obscure them. The climate scientists' minimal 25 percent cut would see the United States emitting 3.94 billion metric tons in 2020. President Barack Obama's 2020 target is 4.99 bmt, only 5.5 percent lower than U.S. 1990 emissions of 5.26 bmt, or less than 1/4 of the minimum 25 percent cut urged by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (The United States packages its nonreduction target as a 17 percent cut from the sky-high 2005 level of 5.99 bmt.) The Chinese, according to the Council on Foreign Relations' Michael Levi, will increase their CO2 emissions by 72 to 88 percent by 2020, i.e., from 6 bmt today to more than 10 bmt. (The Chinese package their increase by pledging a 45 to 50 percent reduction in "carbon intensity," or carbon per unit of gross domestic product, even though averting disastrous climate change requires reducing CO2 emissions, not just intensity.)

...

We live today as if in a trance, conducting business as usual in times so unusual that they pose an even greater threat than 20th-century wars that killed more than 100 million people. It seems incredible, for example, that nonscientists barely discuss how the human climate crisis undermines so many of their basic assumptions--in philosophy, law, psychology, sociology, economics, the arts and humanities, education and health--about human beings and their society.

There's much more in the article ...

http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_869_en.html

Geneva, 8 December 2009 (WMO) – The year 2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850, according to data sources compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The global combined sea surface and land surface air temperature for 2009 (January–October) is currently estimated at 0.44°C ± 0.11°C (0.79°F ± 0.20°F) above the 1961–1990 annual average of 14.00°C/57.2°F. The current nominal ranking of 2009, which does not account for uncertainties in the annual averages, places it as the fifth-warmest year. The decade of the 2000s (2000–2009) was warmer than the decade spanning the 1990s (1990–1999), which in turn was warmer than the 1980s (1980–1989). More complete data for the remainder of the year 2009 will be analysed at the beginning of 2010 to update the current assessment.

This year above-normal temperatures were recorded in most parts of the continents. Only North America (United States and Canada) experienced conditions that were cooler than average. Given the current figures, large parts of southern Asia and central Africa are likely to have the warmest year on record.

Climate extremes, including devastating floods, severe droughts, snowstorms, heatwaves and cold waves, were recorded in many parts of the world. This year the extreme warm events were more frequent and intense in southern South America, Australia and southern Asia, in particular. La Niña conditions shifted into a warm-phase El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in June. The Arctic sea ice extent during the melt season ranked the third lowest, after the lowest and second-lowest records set in 2007 and 2008, respectively.

This preliminary information for 2009 is based on climate data from networks of land-based weather and climate stations, ships and buoys, as well as satellites. The data are continuously collected and disseminated by the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) of the 189 Members of WMO and several collaborating research institutions. The data continuously feed three main depository global climate data and analysis centres, which develop and maintain homogeneous global climate datasets based on peer-reviewed methodologies. The WMO global temperature analysis is thus based on three complementary datasets. One is the combined dataset maintained by both the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom. Another dataset is maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the United States Department of Commerce, and the third one is from the Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The content of the WMO statement is verified and peer-reviewed by leading experts from other international, regional and national climate institutions and centres before its publication.

Final updates and figures for 2009 will be published in March 2010 in the annual WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate.

Regional temperature anomalies

The year 2009 (January–October) was again warmer than the 1961–1990 average all over Europe and the Middle East. China had the third-warmest year since 1951; for some regions 2009 was the warmest year. The year started with a mild January in northern Europe and large parts of Asia, while western and central Europe were colder than normal. Russia and the Great Lakes region in Canada experienced colder-than- average temperatures in February and January, respectively. Spring was very warm in Europe and Asia; April in particular was extremely warm in central Europe. Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria reported temperature anomalies of more than +5°C, breaking the previous records for the month in several locations. The European summer was also warmer than the long-term average, particularly over the southern regions. Spain had the third-warmest summer, with hotter summers reported only in 2003 and 2005. Italy recorded a strong heatwave in July, with maximum temperatures above 40°C, and some local temperatures reaching 45°C. A heatwave at the beginning of July affected the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Germany, and some stations in Norway experienced new maximum temperature records.

India had an extreme heatwave event during May, which caused 150 deaths. A heatwave hit northern China during June, with daily maximum temperatures above 40°C; historical maximum temperature records were broken for the summer in some locations.

In late July many cities across Canada recorded their warmest daily temperatures. Vancouver and Victoria set new records, reaching 34.4°C and 35.0°C, respectively. Alaska also had the second-warmest July on record. Conversely, October was a very cold month across large parts of the United States. For the nation as a whole, it was the third-coolest October on record, with an average temperature anomaly of -2.2°C (-4.0°F). Similarly, a very cold October was reported in Scandinavia, with mean temperature anomalies ranging from -2°C to -4°C.

The austral autumn (March to May) was extremely warm in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and southern Brazil. With daily temperatures ranging from 30°C to 40°C, several records were broken during this season. By the end of October, an extreme weather situation affected north and central Argentina, producing unusually high temperatures (above 40°C). Conversely, November was abnormally cold in the southern part of the region, with some rare and late snowfalls.

So far, Australia has had the third-warmest year on record. The year 2009 was marked by three exceptional heatwaves, which affected south-eastern Australia in January/February and November, and subtropical eastern Australia in August. The January/February heatwave was associated with disastrous bushfires that caused more than 173 fatalities. Victoria recorded its highest temperature with 48.8°C. The northern region experienced a cold summer, however, with anomalies reaching -3°C to -4°C in some places. Winter was exceptionally mild over much of Australia. Maximum temperatures were well above normal across the entire continent, reaching 6°C to 7°C above normal in some parts. The national maximum temperature anomaly of +3.2°C was the largest ever recorded for any month.

Severe droughts

China suffered its worst drought in five decades. Water levels in parts of the Gan River and Xiangjiang River were the lowest in the past 50 years. In India the poor monsoon season caused severe drought impacts in 40 per cent of the districts. The north-western and north-eastern parts of the country were badly affected. It was reported to be one of the weakest monsoon seasons since 1972.

In East Africa the drought led to massive food shortages. In Kenya the drought was responsible for severe damage to livestock and a 40 percent decline in the maize harvest.

In North America, Mexico experienced severe-to-exceptional drought conditions by the month of September. In the United States, the western region was the most affected by a moderate-to-exceptional drought by the end of October. Nevertheless, the total area affected by drought in the United States during October was the second-smallest value recorded in this decade.

Drought in Central Argentina caused severe damage to agriculture, livestock and water resources. The situation was most severe at the end of October, with very high temperatures reported as well.

Over the key agricultural areas of the Murray-Darling Basin and the south-western part of Western Australia, rainfall was generally below normal. The passage of another year without any sustained above-normal rainfall has seen long-term rainfall deficits continuing in south-eastern Australia. Sustained dry conditions in the Murray-Darling Basin have now continued for nine years.

Intense storm events and precipitation

At the end of January, Spain and France were severely affected by winter storm Klaus, the worst extra-tropical storm in a decade, with winds similar to a category 3 hurricane. Another winter storm combined with heavy snowfall caused severe damage in western Europe and resulted in serious disruptions of air and rail traffic in several countries. In late spring and summer a large number of thunderstorms with heavy rain, hail and tornadoes caused local flooding and significant damage across Germany. In September, several parts of the Mediterranean region were affected by extreme rainfall events. Total rainfall of more than 300mm was recorded in less than 48 hours in one location of south-eastern Spain, where the long-term average for total annual precipitation does not exceed 450 mm. During the same month, intense rainfall caused devastating damage to infrastructure in several parts of northern Africa, including Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. In a similar pattern, the highest September rainfall recorded in 80 years produced severe flash floods in north-western Turkey. November brought severe flooding to northern areas of the United Kingdom, and a new 24-hour precipitation record was set for the country.

During the beginning of the year heavy rainfall was observed in Colombia, producing landslides and widespread floods. North-east Brazil was severely affected by heavy rainfall and flooding in April and May. Later, in July, a severe snowstorm hit the southern part of Argentina; it was the worst snowstorm in 15 years. During the austral spring, particularly in November, continuous heavy and intense rainfall was seen in north-eastern Argentina, southern Brazil and Uruguay, causing flooding in many places and affecting more than 15,000 people. Total monthly precipitation records were broken, with rainfall exceeding more than 500mm in many locations.

In Canada, Ontario experienced a record number of witnessed tornadoes and a record number of related fatalities. Canadian avalanches were almost double the yearly average for the past decade and the worst since 2002–2003. A total of 25 deaths made it one of the deadliest seasons. The northern plains region of the United States was affected by record flooding during the month of March. As a whole, the United States recorded the wettest October in 115 years.

In Central America, an intense storm in El Salvador in November, associated in part with Hurricane Ida, produced deadly floods and landslides that claimed 192 lives.

In Asia, after the weak 2009 monsoon season, southern India recorded severe flooding due to incessant rain in late September and the first week of October, and more than 250 lives were lost. On the other hand, northern China was severely affected by a snowstorm that occurred during the first half of November as part of a strong cold wave. These snowfalls were one month earlier than normal, breaking local weather records.

In western Africa, heavy and intense rainfall in September caused flooding that affected more than 100,000 people. The worst flooding was observed in Burkina Faso, where 263 mm of rain was recorded in less than 12 hours, breaking a record set 90 years ago. Further south on the continent, nearly 1 million people in Zambia and Namibia were affected by torrential rain that caused rivers to overflow their banks, flooding homes and cropland.

Australia was also affected by local flooding. Coastal Queensland and New South Wales were the hardest hit by several heavy rain events, with daily rainfall totals in excess of 300 mm. On the other hand, numerous duststorms affected eastern Australia in the second half of September and early October, as regular strong winds transported dust from northern South Australia over the eastern states. The most severe duststorm occurred on 22–23 September and covered large parts of New South Wales and Queensland, where the visibility was reduced to 100–200m in both Sydney and Brisbane.

End of La Niña and Development of El Niño

La Niña-like conditions were present in early 2009, followed by the development of El Niño patterns starting in June 2009. During June–September 2009, sea surface temperatures were generally about 1°C warmer than the long-term average across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. An El Niño event is currently underway, with the early phase of the event holding steady at weak-to-moderate levels through July–September. During October, almost all indicators of El Niño became noticeably stronger.

Tropical cyclone season

The 2009 Atlantic hurricane season closed with the fewest named storms and hurricanes since 1997, most likely due to the unfavourable cyclonic conditions caused in part by El Niño. A total of nine named tropical storms were formed, including three hurricanes, two of which were major hurricanes at Category 3 strength or higher. (The averages are 11, 6 and 2, respectively).

In the East Pacific, 20 named tropical storms were recorded, eight of which evolved into hurricanes and five of which became major hurricanes (The averages are 16, 9 and 4, respectively.)

In the western North Pacific, 22 named tropical storms have been recorded so far, and 13 of them reached the intensity of typhoon, compared to the long-term averages of 27 and 14, respectively. Heavy precipitation associated with typhoons Ketsana and Parma was observed across the south of Luzon Island in the Philippines. The resulting flood disaster caused more than 900 fatalities in total. In August, Typhoon Morakot swept across Taiwan Province of China and caused more than 400 deaths and severe damage to agriculture and infrastructure. Hundreds of roads and bridges on the island were destroyed by floods.

The Australian and South Indian Ocean cyclone seasons recorded near-average activity. In the Australian region, there were 10 systems during this season, with Hamish the most significant one, although it did not make landfall. It reached category 5 intensity and was the most intense cyclone observed off the eastern Queensland coast since 1918.

Third-lowest Arctic sea ice

According to scientific measurements, Arctic sea ice has declined dramatically over the past 30 years at least, with the most extreme decline seen in the summer melt season. Arctic sea ice extent during the 2009 melt season was 5.10 million km2, which is the third-lowest on record after the 2007 record (4.3 million km2) and 2008 (4.67 million km2), since satellite measurements began in 1979.

Information sources

This press release was issued in collaboration with the Hadley Centre of the United Kingdom Meteorological Office; the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom; the National Climatic Data Center, National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service, and the National Weather Service under NOAA; and the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the United States. Other contributors are the NMHSs of Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Japan, Morocco, Spain, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey and Uruguay. The African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD, Niamey), the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), the Centro Internacional para la Investigación del Fenómeno de El Niño (CIIFEN, Guayaquil, Ecuador), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC, Nairobi, Kenya), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Drought Monitoring Centre (SADC DMC, Gabarone, Botswana) and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) also contributed.

Global Surface Temperature Trend : Result from three Global datasets: NOAA (NCDC Dataset) , NASA (GISS dataset) and combined Hadley Center and Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (UK) (HadCRUT3 dataset)

WMO is the United Nations System’s authoritative voice on weather, climate and water.

Copenhagen's baby step on climate change: More electric cars?
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1130/p08s01-comv.html

Apparently both the U.S. and China have agreed that an important step to combat climate change is to have more electric cars.

During his trip to the climate-change conference, President Obama can point to his recent pact with Beijing to jointly share information on standards, research, and demonstration of such vehicles....Mr. Obama is banking heavily on electric and hybrid cars to reshape the world's energy future. Earlier this year, he promised to "put one million plug-in hybrid vehicles on America's roads by 2015." But besides the new cooperation with China and the billions in subsidies to bolster this small industry, his main policy tool is to push automakers to produce fleets that run with an average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.

China is industrializing and that's a big driving factor in growth of fossil fuel use. By steering China (and India) towards a more efficient transport system it would change China's environmental footprint as they industrialize.

The article also steers into debate over how to measure fuel efficiency of electric cars. It is rather silly to equate electric kilowatt-hours/mile ratings into miles/gallon but on the other hand miles/gallon is a familiar measure.

CFL's whats in them? I heard mercury is that true? If so I like LED's better.
Anybody out there know thw facts?

Scientists say that 350 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity. For all of human history until about 300 years ago, our atmosphere contained 275 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide. That’s a useful amount—without some CO2 and other greenhouse gases that trap heat in our atmosphere, our planet would be too cold for life on Earth. About 300 years ago the coal and oil age of human history began. Harnessing of coal, and later oil, drove the machines of the Industrial Revolution which eventually led to all the machines and industry surrounding us today. While the machines have brought some useful benefits, the use of oil and coal have harmful side effects that are threatening all our wellbeing.

One of the side effects is an increasing concentration of harmful gasses in the atmosphere. While CO2 is a natural byproduct of animals, its increasing concentration is damaging the natural ecological balance. The current concentration of atmospheric CO2 is 389 parts per million. Side effects include rising sea levels, melting glaciers, ocean acidification, and more severe weather. Returning to 350 parts per million (or less) is required posthaste.

350.org is organizing an international Day of Action. They are calling on people around the world to organize a 350 action for October 24 at an iconic place in their community and upload a photo of their event to 350.org website.

At a minimum a "350 action" is to simply gather a group of people, include the number 350, and upload photo's to 350.org. They suggest a variety of actions including teach-in's, inviting political leaders, organizing rallies, a trash cleanup, etc.

They have available resources for publicity or basic information to display during a 350 action.

It's well and good to have a day of gaining attention to an important issue such as this. What about long term change? On the site they discuss that it is an invitation to build a movement, and clearly they mean for some long term action in addition to the day of action on October 24. The web site doesn't say what the "movement" will be doing in the long term.