Climate Change And “Conservatives” (via The Moderate Voice)
Climate Change Denier – Marco Rubio (via The Moderate Voice)What has always amazed me is that the climate change deniers are mostly from states that are already being impacted. A case in point is Miami, Florida which is increasingly experiencing flooding at high tide. In spite of this Florida’s Senator…
A few months ago I did a post on an article by William deBuys Exodus From Phoenix. This article was just an introduction to his book A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest. |
| Lake Mead |
Carbon Dioxide Passes 400 PPM Milestone, NOAA Finds (via Climate Central)
The State Of The Climate Change Battle: Science-Based Warnings Vs. The Politician’s Caution. (via Planetsave) |
| Hurricane Sandy |
For decades, the oil and coal industries and some of their largest industrial customers have conducted a sophisticated and wildly successful multimillion dollar campaign based in the U.S. to convince the American public that climate change is not a serious threat. The impetus for the campaign has been to protect industry profits by blocking any action designed to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide and other global heating gases produced in burning fossil fuels.This has always amazed me. Are these executives so concerned about profits today that they will risk their children and grand children's future. There is really on one explanation - they are sociopaths.
Of course, it’s an easy city to pick on. The nation’s 13th largest metropolitan area (nudging out Detroit) crams 4.3 million people into a low bowl in a hot desert, where horrific heat waves and windstorms visit it regularly. It snuggles next to the nation’s largest nuclear plant and, having exhausted local sources, it depends on an improbable infrastructure to suck water from the distant (and dwindling) Colorado River.
Global Grain Stocks Drop Dangerously Low as 2012 Consumption Exceeded Production (via sustainablog)
Australia Scorches In Record Heatwave As Warming Trends Bite (via Desmogblog)
World’s Polar Ice Sheets Are Melting Faster And Faster, Research Confirms (via Planetsave)
Deforestation risks turning Somalia to desert (via AFP)
The reality of climate change can no longer be ignored (via GlobalPost)
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| Flooded Subway via MTA |
For nearly a decade, scientists have told city and state officials that New York faces certain peril: rising sea levels, more frequent flooding and extreme weather patterns. The alarm bells grew louder after Tropical Storm Irene last year, when the city shut down its subway system and water rushed into the Rockaways and Lower Manhattan.A few years ago the Weather Channel had a special on this very possibility. Now as the sea level rises and the storms become more intense that possibility became a probability. So what should be done? Rebuilding followed by billions in levees and floodgates to protect from a future event? Or should certain areas simply be abandoned? Back in 2005 I suggested that New Orleans should be given back to the sea. A Katrina scenario had also been predicted.
On Tuesday, as New Yorkers woke up to submerged neighborhoods and water-soaked electrical equipment, officials took their first tentative steps toward considering major infrastructure changes that could protect the city’s fragile shores and eight million residents from repeated disastrous damage.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said the state should consider a levee system or storm surge barriers and face up to the inadequacy of the existing protections.
“The construction of this city did not anticipate these kinds of situations. We are only a few feet above sea level,” Mr. Cuomo said during a radio interview. “As soon as you breach the sides of Manhattan, you now have a whole infrastructure under the city that fills — the subway system, the foundations for buildings,” and the World Trade Center site.
After rising roughly an inch per decade in the last century, coastal waters in New York are expected to climb as fast as six inches per decade, or two feet by midcentury, according to a city-appointed scientific panel. That much more water means the city’s flood risk zones could expand in size.So when is it going to become impossible to mitigate the threat?
"Look, the city is extremely vulnerable to damaging storm surges just for its geography, and climate change is increasing that risk," said Ben Strauss, director of the sea level rise program at the research group Climate Central in Princeton, N.J. “Three of the top 10 highest floods at the Battery since 1900 happened in the last two and a half years. If that’s not a wake-up call to take this seriously, I don’t know what is."
Climate Change Policy Gap Between USA and Europe Widens, as Norway Announces World’s Largest Carbon Tax (via Planetsave)
Boon's findings, published online in the Journal of Coastal Research, confirm those of two other recent studies that find accelerating rates of sea-level rise along the Atlantic Coast of the U.S. and Canada. He'll discuss his research during the Oceans12 Conference at the Virginia Beach Convention Center this week, and at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Charlotte in early November. The question of whether sea level is rising at a steady or increasing rate is of critical important to those tasked with planning for and adapting to coastal flooding in their communities. "Localized projections of sea-level rise are needed to guide the regional planning and adaptation measures that are being pursued with increasing urgency in many coastal localities," says Boon. "Acceleration in the rate of sea-level rise has the kind of compound effect you see in a savings account, or with credit-card debt," he adds. "It's not just that sea level is increasing, but that the rate at which it's increasing is increasing as well. That can cause future sea level to be significantly higher than if the rise rate were constant."This is something they are well aware of in Miami.
Miami-Dade County officials said Tuesday’s flooding of Alton Road and other low-lying areas in Miami Beach is a warning about the perils of rising sea levels.Droughts in the middle of the country and more violent storms across the country and the threats of rising sea level on the coasts. How much longer will the propaganda from big oil and coal work?
Parts of Miami Beach were flooded by unusually high tide Tuesday morning, which is partly due to an annual high tide that occurs every autumn.
On Tuesday morning, the highest tide occurred about 9:50 a.m. Mercedes and BMWs plowed through floodwaters, splashing waves onto local sidewalks, residences and businesses. Some pedestrians walked through standing water.
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Rising seas, which are connected to global warming and climate change, have been a growing topic in the City of Miami Beach. The city’s new storm water plan includes $200 million of infrastructure expenses designed to combat rising seas over the next 20 years.
It becomes a bit more clear that we may have set ourselves down the wrong path when we framed the challenge of mitigating greenhouse gases in terms of “reducing emissions”. Characterizing the policy challenge in this way leads people in rich countries to focus on things like changing light bulbs and driving less thirsty cars – all good things, to be sure – but which can hardly make a dent in the overall challenge of stabilizing atmospheric concentrations. And it leads people in developing countries shaking their head – how can they “reduce emissions” when they hardly have any to begin with?They go onto to say that carbon taxes are not the way to go - it won't accomplish anything. Believe it or not I think that the authors are over optimistic because they think there is a solution. As I said here the real problem isn't just people using too much energy it's too many people consuming too many resources.
We must acknowledge up front that the world needs more energy – vast amounts more. The International Energy Agency projects that global energy demand will increase by 60% by 2030 and recent trends in China and elsewhere suggest that this may even be an underestimate. Consider also that published estimates suggest that 2 billion people or more currently lack access to electricity. Their energy needs have only one direction to go.
If the world needs more energy, and this fact seems inescapable, then the first question to ask is not “how do we reduce emissions?” but instead, “In a world that needs vast amounts of more energy, how can we provide that energy in ways that do not lead to the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere?”
There can be only two answers to this question. One is to develop new technologies of energy supply that are carbon neutral or, to take carbon dioxide out of the air in some manner. Both types of actions require significant technological innovation. It is hard to square the I.P.C.C.’s conclusion that we have all the technology that we need with the results presented in our Nature paper.
The estimated population of the earth in 1 AD was 200 million people. In 1800 AD it was approaching one billion, a five fold increase in 1,800 years. Between 1800 and 2000, a span of 200 years population increased six fold to over 6 billion people. This population increase was made possible in large part by fossil fuels. The reality is the earth cannot support six billion hunter-gatherers. The real solution to climate change, peak oil and water shortages can only involve population reduction. Certainly not politically correct so nothing will be done that is significant.Nothing will be done but as the sea level rises, the deserts expand and the oil and water runs out the population will self equalize. Of course the wars over resources will speed this equalization along.
The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades.I am a firm believer in global warming/climate change and physics tells us that increased CO2 will contribute to warming. That said I don't believe that we can predict accurately where climate change will lead - there are simply too many variables. What few address is the "real" problem - there are too many people. The estimated population of the earth in 1 AD was 200 million people. In 1800 AD it was approaching one billion, a five fold increase in 1,800 years. Between 1800 and 2000, a span of 200 years population increased six fold to over 6 billion people. This population increase was made possible in large part by fossil fuels. The reality is the earth cannot support six billion hunter-gatherers. The real solution to climate change, peak oil and water shortages can only involve population reduction. Certainly not politically correct so nothing will be done that is significant.
Their findings, published in separate journals over the past few weeks, suggest that both industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide.
Using advanced computer models to factor in deep-sea warming and other aspects of the carbon cycle that naturally creates and removes carbon dioxide (CO2), the scientists, from countries including the United States, Canada and Germany, are delivering a simple message: The world must bring carbon emissions down to near zero to keep temperatures from rising further.
Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.There are a number of problems with this article all based on ignorance. Let's start with the first paragraph: "Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966". This could actually be seen as a sign of Global Warming. When we talk about Global Warming we are not talking about the entire planet becoming tropical. Places that are really cold become less cold but they are still really cold. The result is more snow because the warmer the air the more water vapor it holds - the more water vapor the more snow.
The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."
China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.
The equatorial sun warms the ocean surface and enhances evaporation in the tropics. This leaves the tropical ocean saltier. The Gulf Stream, a limb of the Ocean Conveyor, carries an enormous volume of heat-laden, salty water up the East Coast of the United States, and then northeast toward Europe.The diminishing or shut down of this global heat pump happens rapidly and although it's effects can be seen in just a few years they can last over a century.
This oceanic heat pump is an important mechanism for reducing equator-to-pole temperature differences. It moderates Earth's climate, particularly in the North Atlantic region. Conveyor circulation increases the northward transport of warmer waters in the Gulf Stream by about 50 percent. At colder northern latitudes, the ocean releases this heat to the atmosphere-especially in winter when the atmosphere is colder than the ocean and ocean-atmosphere temperature gradients increase. The Conveyor warms North Atlantic regions by as much as 5° Celsius and significantly tempers average winter temperatures.
But records of past climates' from a variety of sources such as deep-sea sediments and ice-sheet cores' show that the Conveyor has slowed and shut down several times in the past. This shutdown curtailed heat delivery to the North Atlantic and caused substantial cooling throughout the region.
"Imagine eastern European countries, struggling to feed their populations with a falling supply of food, water and energy, eyeing Russia, whose population is already in decline, for access to its grains, minerals and energy supply. Or, picture Japan, suffering from flooding along its coastal cities and contamination of its fresh water supply, eyeing Russia's Sakhalin Island oil and gas reserves as an energy source. ... Envision Pakistan, India, and China - all armed with nuclear weapons -skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land."......................
Military showdowns could be fast and furious, the report speculates: In 2015, conflict in Europe over supplies of food and water leads to strained relations. In 2022, France and Germany battle over the Rhine River's water. The U.S. Defense Department seals off America's borders to stanch floods of refugees from Mexico and the Caribbean. In 2025, as energy costs increase in nations struggling to cope with warmer and colder weather, the United States and China square off over access to Saudi Arabian oil.
America would weather the climate changes best, albeit with declining agricultural fertility, according to the report. Europe would be hit hard with food shortages and streams of people leaving. China would be hurt by colder winters and hotter summers triggering widespread famine.
Let me be the last in the greenosphere to note that Nanosolar has shipped its first panels, and it's no exaggeration to say that this moment will likely be seen as a historical turning point.So what is Nanosolar and what do they do different?
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Nanosolar's claim is that power from their panels will pencil out at about $0.99 a watt. The implications are pretty stunning:"With a $1-per-watt panel," [CEO Martin Roscheisen] said, "it is possible to build $2-per-watt systems."
According to the Energy Department, building a new coal plant costs about $2.1 a watt, plus the cost of fuel and emissions, he said.
The company produces its PowerSheet solar cells with printing-press-style machines that set down a layer of solar-absorbing nano-ink onto metal sheets as thin as aluminum foil, so the panels can be made for about a tenth of what current panels cost and at a rate of several hundred feet per minute. With backing from Google’s founders and $20 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, Nanosolar’s first commercial cells rolled off the presses this year.This is perhaps the greatest threat the corporate energy industry has seen. Coal was seen as the only alternative to large scale energy production. Alternatives have been far too expensive - until now. It represents an even greater threat; it can be decentralized making those thousands of mile of transmission lines unnecessary and eliminating the monopoly that electric power has been. There are no big profits in roof top electrical generation. Look for the powerful to attempt to erect roadblocks to stop it's widespread use. This represents a bigger threat to big energy than global warming.
Cost has always been one of solar’s biggest problems. Traditional solar cells require silicon, and silicon is an expensive commodity (exacerbated currently by a global silicon shortage). What’s more, says Peter Harrop, chairman of electronics consulting firm IDTechEx, “it has to be put on glass, so it’s heavy, dangerous, expensive to ship and expensive to install because it has to be mounted.” And up to 70 percent of the silicon gets wasted in the manufacturing process. That means even the cheapest solar panels cost about $3 per watt of energy they go on to produce. To compete with coal, that figure has to shrink to just $1 per watt.
Nanosolar’s cells use no silicon, and the company’s manufacturing process allows it to create cells that are as efficient as most commercial cells for as little as 30 cents a watt. “You’re talking about printing rolls of the stuff—printing it on the roofs of 18-wheeler trailers, printing it on garages, printing it wherever you want it,” says Dan Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. “It really is quite a big deal in terms of altering the way we think about solar and in inherently altering the economics of solar.”
