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"First they laugh at you,
then they ignore you, then they fight with you, then you win." -- Ghandi
"Mankind's future depends
on America's energy choices. Let's clean house and abandon the
phony solutions that result in war, environmental ruin,
poverty, hunger, hatred and disease.
We must lead. We must set the example and Build A World That
Works!"TM -- Richard D.
Masters
Climate Change Part 1
2 The Climate Change debate is over. Now the question is "How bad will it be?" CAN HUMANITY
REVERSE THE DAMAGE
DONE BY OIL & COAL?
OR IS IT TOO LATE?
A monster iceberg nearly twice the
size of Hong Kong island has been spotted drifting
towards Australia in what scientists Wednesday called a
once-in-a-century event. ...The finding comes after two
large icebergs were spotted further east, off
Australia's Macquarie Island, followed by more than 100
smaller ice chunks heading towards New Zealand.
China must do much
more if it is to halve per capita greenhouse emissions
by 2050 and thereby avoid a catastrophic rise in global
temperatures, but it cannot go it alone, a report
released in Beijing said on Tuesday.
The report, Going Clean: the economics of China’s
low-carbon development, by the Chinese Economists 50
Forum and SEI, says that emission reductions up to 2050
can be made for example through:
Energy efficiency gains through improved building
design, standards for electrical appliances and the
use of less energy-intensive materials
A massive shift towards the use of renewable
energy such as wind and solar energy, municipal solid
waste and biomass, and small hydropower
Electric vehicles for road transport
Using Carbon Capture and Storage technology in new
coal-fired power plants
A better international cooperation mechanism that
can channel more finance and technologies from
developed countries
The report by Chinese, Swedish,
German, British and American experts says that these
changes would also present opportunities for China to
improve its energy security and move its economy higher
up the international value chain.
The UN Copenhagen climate talks
are in disarray today after developing countries reacted
furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders
will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands
more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role
in all future climate change negotiations.
Earth’s history reveals numerous cases in which ice melt
caused sea level to rise several meters per century. If
business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions continue the
human-made climate forcing will be much greater than the
natural forcings that caused these earlier ice sheet
disintegrations. I find it implausible that the West
Antarctic ice sheet could survive this century, if
business-as-usual emissions continue. Thus, in such an
emission scenario, sea level rise of several meters
should be expected this century, with still further sea
level rise continuing, out of control of humanity.
A Hotter Planet Means Less on Our Plates Lester R. Brown
Washington Post
November 22, 2009
The vanishing of mountain glaciers in
Asia represents
the biggest threat to the world food supply that we have ever seen.
Provocative New Study Warns of Crossing Planetary Boundaries The Earth has nine biophysical thresholds beyond which it
cannot be pushed without disastrous consequences, the authors of
a new paper in the journal Nature report. Ominously, these
scientists say, we have already moved past three of these
tipping points. Carl Zimmer Yale Environment 360
September 23, 2009
Tipping Towards the Unknown Researchers propose critical planetary boundaries,
transgressing them could be catastrophic. But there is hope. Stockholm Resilience Centre
September 23, 2009
Anthropogenic pressures
on the Earth System have reached a scale where abrupt global
environmental change can no longer be excluded. We propose a new
approach to global sustainability in which we define planetary
boundaries within which we expect that humanity can operate
safely. Transgressing one or more planetary boundaries may be
deleterious or even catastrophic due to the risk of crossing
thresholds that will trigger non-linear, abrupt environmental
change within continental- to planetary-scale systems.
Authors
Johan Rockström, Åsa Persson, Björn Nykvist, Uno Svedin, Louise
Karlberg
Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm
University, Sweden Will Steffen
ANU Climate Change Institute, Australian National
University, Australia Kevin Noone, Cynthia A. de Wit Dept of Applied Environmental Science,
Stockholm University, Sweden F. Stuart Chapin, III
Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska
Fairbanks, USA Eric F. Lambin
Department of Geography, Université Catholique de
Louvain, Belgium Timothy M. Lenton
School of Environmental Sciences, University of
East Anglia, UK Marten Scheffer
Aquatic Ecology &
Water Quality Management Group, Wageningen U., Netherlands Carl Folke
The Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics,
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research,
Germany Terry Hughes
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies,
James Cook University, Australia Sander van der Leeuw
School of Human Evolution & Social Change,
Arizona State University, USA Henning Rodhe
Department of Meteorology, Stockholm University, Sweden Sverker Sörlin
Div. of History of Science and Technology, Royal
Institute of Technology, Sweden Peter K. Snyder
Department of Soil, Water, and Climate,
University of Minnesota, USA Robert Costanza
Gund Institute for Ecological Economics,
University of Vermont, USA Malin Falkenmark
Stockholm International Water Institute, Sweden Robert W. Corell
The H. John Heinz III Center for Science,
Economics and the Environment, USA Victoria J. Fabry
Department of Biological Sciences, California
State University San Marcos, USA James Hansen
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, USA Brian Walker
CSIRO - Sustainable Ecosystems, Australia Diana Liverman
Environmental Change Institute, University of
Oxford, UK Katherine Richardson
Earth System Science Centre, Univ. of Copenhagen,
Denmark Paul Crutzen
Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Switzerland Jonathan A. Foley
Institute on the Environment, University of
Minnesota, USA
US-EU Rift Clouds Climate Summit Fiona Harvey
Financial Times (UK)
September 21, 2009
A growing rift between the US and Europe is overshadowing
Tuesday’s United Nations climate change summit in New York,
further damping hopes for a breakthrough at the Copenhagen
talks in December.
The Asian Brown Cloud sweeps from India
across the Bay of Bengal [left]
to Burma, Thailand, Loas, Vietnam, then on to China.
India Widens Climate Rift with West J. Lamont, J. Chaffin, F. Harvey
Financial Times (UK) July
23, 2009
Jairam Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, accused the
developed world of needlessly raising alarm over melting
Himalayan glaciers. He dismissed scientists’ predictions that
Himalayan glaciers might disappear within 40 years as a result
of global warming. ...Seven of the world’s greatest rivers,
including the Ganges and the Yangtze, are fed by the glaciers
of the Himalayas and Tibet. They supply water to about 40 per
cent of the world’s population.
The build-up of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and the
resulting global warming pose major environmental threats to
Asia’s water and food security. Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane,
nitrous oxide, halocarbons and ozone in the lower atmosphere
(below about 15 km) are the major gases that are contributing
to the increase in the greenhouse effect. In a similar
fashion, increasing amount of soot, sulphates and other
aerosol
components in atmospheric brown clouds (ABCs) are
causing major threats to the water and food security of
Asia and have resulted in surface dimming, atmospheric solar
heating and soot deposition in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan-Tibetan
(HKHT) glaciers and snow packs. These have given rise to major
areas of concern, some of the most critical being observed
decreases in the Indian summer monsoon rainfall, a north-south
shift in rainfall patterns in eastern China, the accelerated
retreat of the HKHT glaciers and decrease in snow packs, and
the increase in surface ozone. All these have led to negative
effects on water resources and crop yields. The emergence of
the ABC problem is expected to further aggravate the recent
dramatic escalation of food prices and the consequent
challenge for survival among the world’s most vulnerable
populations.
The
scariest thing about geo-engineering, as it happens, is also
the thing that makes it such a game-changer in the
global-warming debate: it’s incredibly cheap. Many scientists,
in fact, prefer not to mention just how cheap it is. Nearly
everyone I spoke to agreed that the worst-case scenario would
be the rise of what David Victor, a Stanford law professor,
calls a “Greenfinger”—a rich madman, as obsessed with the
environment as James Bond’s nemesis Auric Goldfinger was with
gold. There are now 38 people in the world with $10 billion or
more in private assets, according to the latest Forbes list;
theoretically, one of these people could reverse climate
change all alone.
Carbon Trading on the Cheap If the United States wants
to build a market-based approach to reducing carbon dioxide
emissions, it should learn from Europe's failures. Peter Fairley MIT Technology Review
July/August 2009
A glut of pollution
credits, distributed without cost during both the first,
transitional phase of the program and the current working
phase, drove down the value of the EUAs [CO2 release
allowances]. As a result, Europe's carbon dioxide emissions
remain priced well below 20 euros per ton. With the price of
pollution so low, economists say, industries that generate and
consume energy have no incentives to change their habits; it
is still cheaper to use fossil fuels than to switch to
technologies that pollute less.
RELEASED
Copenhagen Report:
"Climate Inaction
is Inexcusable"
Potsdam Institute for Global
Science Research June 18,
2009
The most up-to-date report on
climate science notes that global temperatures, sea levels,
and frequency of extreme weather events are all increasing
beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our
contemporary society and economy have developed. That doesn't
bode well for the future of global economies and of
civilization itself, nor on the ecosystems that our
civilization depends on, unless global societies rise to meet
the challenge of climate change.
“If humanity is to learn from history and to limit these
threats [of anthropogenic climate change], the time has come
for stronger control of the human activities that are changing
the fundamental conditions for life on Earth,” the writing
team states in the Synthesis Report. To decide on effective
control measures, an understanding of how human activities are
changing the climate, and of the implications of unchecked
climate change, needs to be widespread among world and
national leaders, as well as among the public. The report
communicates this understanding through six key messages:
Key Message 1
Climatic Trends Recent observations show that greenhouse gas emissions and
many aspects of the climate are changing near the upper
boundary of the IPCC range of projections. Many key climate
indicators are already moving beyond the patterns of natural
variability within which contemporary society and economy have
developed and thrived. These indicators include global mean
surface temperature, sea-level rise, global ocean temperature,
Arctic sea ice extent, ocean acidification, and extreme
climatic events. With unabated emissions, many trends in
climate will likely accelerate, leading to an increasing risk
of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.
Key Message 2
Social and environmental disruption The research community provides much information to
support discussions on “dangerous climate change”. Recent
observations show that societies and ecosystems are highly
vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor
nations and communities, ecosystem services and biodiversity
particularly at risk. Temperature rises above 2°C will be
difficult for contemporary societies to cope with, and are
likely to cause major societal and environmental disruptions
through the rest of the century and beyond.
Key Message 3
Long-term strategy – Global Targets and Timetables
Rapid, sustained, and effective mitigation based on
coordinated global and regional action is required to avoid
“dangerous climate change” regardless of how it is defined.
Weaker targets for 2020 increase the risk of serious impacts,
including the crossing of tipping points, and make the task of
meeting 2050 targets more difficult and costly. Setting a
credible long-term price for carbon and the adoption of
policies that promote energy efficiency and low-carbon
technologies are central to effective mitigation.
Key Message 4 Equity Dimensions
Climate change is having, and will have, strongly differential
effects on people within and between countries and regions, on
this generation and future generations, and on human societies
and the natural world. An effective, well-funded adaptation
safety net is required for those people least capable of
coping with climate change impacts, and equitable mitigation
strategies are needed to protect the poor and most vulnerable.
Tackling climate change should be seen as integral to the
broader goals of enhancing socioeconomic development and
equity throughout the world.
Key Message 5
Inaction is inexcusable
Society already has many tools and approaches – economic,
technological, behavioural, and managerial – to deal
effectively with the climate change challenge. If these tools
are not vigorously and widely implemented, adaptation to the
unavoidable climate change and the societal transformation
required to decarbonise economies will not be achieved. A wide
range of benefits will flow from a concerted effort to achieve
effective and rapid adaptation and mitigation. These include
job growth in the sustainable energy sector; reductions in the
health, social, economic and environmental costs of climate
change; and the repair of ecosystems and revitalisation of
ecosystem services.
Key Message 6 Meeting the Challenge
If the societal transformation required to meet the climate
change challenge is to be achieved, then a number of
significant constraints must be overcome and critical
opportunities seized. These include reducing inertia in social
and economic systems; building on a growing public desire for
governments to act on climate change; reducing activities that
increase greenhouse gas emissions and reduce resilience (e.g.
subsidies); and enabling the shifts from ineffective
governance and weak institutions to innovative leadership in
government, the private sector and civil society. Linking
climate change with broader sustainable consumption and
production concerns, human rights issues and democratic values
is crucial for shifting societies towards more sustainable
development pathways.
Published Papers from Conference on CLIMATE
CHANGE: GLOBAL RISKS, CHALLENGES AND DECISIONS
Copenhagen, Denmark
March 10–12, 2009
Climate Change Odds
Much Worse Than Thought New analysis shows warming could be
double previous estimates David Chandler MIT News Office
May 19, 2009 Image courtesy / MIT
Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
The new projections, published this
month in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of
Climate, indicate a median probability of surface warming of
5.2 degrees Celsius by 2100, with
a
90% probability range of 3.5 to 7.4 degrees. This can
be compared to a median projected increase in the 2003 study
of just 2.4 degrees. The difference is caused by several
factors rather than any single big change. Among these are
improved economic modeling and newer economic data showing
less chance of low emissions than had been projected in the
earlier scenarios. Other changes include accounting for the
past masking of underlying warming by the cooling induced by
20th century volcanoes, and for emissions of soot, which can
add to the warming effect. In addition, measurements of deep
ocean temperature rises, which enable estimates of how fast
heat and carbon dioxide are removed from the atmosphere and
transferred to the ocean depths, imply lower transfer rates
than previously estimated.
...And the odds
indicated by this modeling may actually understate the
problem, because the model does not fully incorporate other
positive feedbacks that can occur, for example, if increased
temperatures caused a large-scale melting of permafrost in
arctic regions and subsequent release of large quantities of
methane, a very potent greenhouse gas.
A new report released today by the
Copenhagen Climate Council at the World Business Summit on
Climate Change reveals that a firm commitment to low-carbon
energy sources would create millions of sustainable new jobs
in the United States alone.
Authored by Dan Kammen and Ditlev Engel, the report, Green
Jobs and the Clean Energy Economy, demonstrates that
appropriate policy frameworks and large-scale strategic
investment in clean energy technologies will both spur greater
employment than fossil fuel investment and pay dividends for
the planet.
Based on a job-creation model developed at the Renewable and
Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California,
Berkeley, and featuring a case study of Danish wind power
giant Vestas Wind Systems, the latest installment of the
Council's Thought Leadership Series provides analytical
support for solutions that promote clean sources of energy and
job creation simultaneously.
The report reveals a combination of policy scenarios that
demonstrate that renewable energy investment and energy
efficiency measures can generate 2 to 8 times more jobs per
unit of energy delivered than the fossil fuel-based sector.
Green Jobs further indicates that in the United States alone a
national Renewable Portfolio Standard of 25% in 2025 coupled
with a 0.5% annual electricity growth rate would generate more
than 2 million jobs, and further increasing low-carbon sources
by around 50% would generate more than 3 million jobs. This
would result in a massive 90% of U.S. electricity supply
coming from renewable or low-carbon sources.
"This report dramatically illustrates the growth and real
employment power of green energy jobs not just in the future,
but today. Who would not want to replace foreign debt for
energy for investing in a trained and innovative workforce?,"
says Professor and Co-Director of the Berkeley Institute of
the Environment Daniel M. Kammen.
The report highlights the pivotal role that the public sector
must play if we are to de-carbonize our electricity supply and
embark on a sustainable path. An example of this is the E.U.'s
consistent record of progressive regulation that has spurred
decades of innovation.
One such example of entrepreneurial sustainability is Vestas'
visionary investment in green tech. Ditlev Engel, CEO of
Vestas, explains: "This report shows once again that the wind
energy industry provides jobs on a massive scale and engenders
economic development. The recipe for growth
and sustainability is very simple: long-term commitments for
greenhouse gas emission reductions plus investment in power
generation infrastructure.
"This will drive the market on a sustainable business
platform; at Vestas we call that simply – Modern Energy," he
adds. In 2005, Vestas employed 10,000 people worldwide. Today,
this number has risen to nearly 20,000 employees in 62
countries."
Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Henry
Waxman, D-Calif., announced Tuesday evening the outlines of a
deal that they said would ensure the legislation will please
both environmental and industry groups and have the support of
moderate Democrats on the House Energy Committee. To do so,
they have lowered targets for renewable energy, will require a
smaller reduction by 2020 in the emissions blamed for global
warming, and will give away valuable permits to release
pollution to electricity distribution companies and auto
manufacturers.
...Chu's comments followed meetings with
environmental ministers attending the fifth Summit of the
Americas. He did not shy away from the most perilous
predictions about the potential effects of global warming. He
said global temperatures have already risen by 0.8 degree
Centigrade, that another 1 degree increase was certain to
occur and "there's a reasonable probability we can go above 4
degrees Centigrade to 5 and 6 more."
"...If you look at, you know, the Bay Area, where I came
from, all three airports would be under water. So this is --
this is serious stuff. The impacts could be enormous," he
said.
The Environmental Protection Agency
concluded Friday that greenhouse gases linked to climate change
"endanger public health and welfare," setting the stage for
regulating them under federal clean air laws.
...In announcing the proposed finding, EPA Administrator Lisa
Jackson said it "confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a
serious problem now and for future generations." She reiterated
that the Obama administration prefers that climate change be
address by Congress through broad, economy-wide limits on
climate-changing pollution. But the EPA finding of endangerment
prepares for possible regulatory action if Congress fails to
act.
...The agency said in its finding that "in both magnitude and
probability, climate change is an enormous problem" and that
carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases "that are
responsible for it endanger public health and welfare within the
meaning of the Clean Air Act." The EPA concluded that the
science pointing to man-made pollution as a cause of global
warming is "compelling and overwhelming."
"Oil is not responsible," the producer group's
Secretary General, Abdullah al-Badri, told reporters on Thursday on the
sidelines of the International Oil Summit in Paris. "It is the
industrialised countries which are making all this pollution in the
world".
CLIMATE CHANGE
TERROR STRIKES THE WORLD'S
LARGEST COAL EXPORTING NATION
"It's mass murder..."
AUSTRALIA
BURNS Daily Telegraph (Australia)
February 9, 2009
The Victorian bushfire toll reached 108 dead today and, it is
feared, will climb higher as the state remains under a shroud of
smoke and grief from the worst inferno in the nation's history.
Fires, Floods Pressure Australia on Climate James Grubel Reuters (UK)
February 9, 2009
Green groups said the severe weather was a result of
climate change and would increase pressure on Rudd to take
stronger action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for global
warming, when he introduces a new climate policy to parliament in
May.
CALIFORNIA DOOMED
Photo copyright
2007 Rosemary Star
"We're looking at a scenario where there's
no more agriculture in California. ...I don't actually see how
they can keep their cities going." U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu
California Farms, Vineyards in Peril from Warming,
U.S. Energy Secretary Warns
Jim Tankersley Los Angeles Times
February 4, 2009
...For each billion ethanol-equivalent
gallons of fuel produced and combusted in the US, the combined
climate-change and health costs are $469 million for gasoline,
$472–952 million for corn
ethanol depending on biorefinery heat source (natural gas,
corn stover, or coal)....
Increasing liquid fuel production is not the only approach to
meeting society’s growing transportation energy needs.Technological and
behavioral solutions include improved vehicle efficiency, public
transportation, redesign of urban landscapes, and hybrid, plug-in
electric, natural gas, and
hydrogen vehicles.
In total, the considerable societal costs of GHG and PM2.5
emissions, and of other effects not yet quantified, should be
given full weight in policy choices among energy sources,
efficiency, and conservation.
US must take the lead
to avert eco-disaster Robin McKie
The Observer (UK)
January 18, 2009
That is the stark assessment of
Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week
warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the
devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that
action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he
added.
NATIONAL
MEDAL OF SCIENCE RECIPIENT DECLARES CO2 DAMAGE "IRREVERSIBLE"
"It is
sometimes imagined that slow processes such as climate changes
pose small risks, on the basis of the assumption that a choice
can always be made to quickly reduce emissions and thereby
reverse any harm within a few years or decades. We have shown
that this assumption is incorrect for carbon dioxide emissions,
because of the longevity of the atmospheric CO2 perturbation and
ocean warming. Irreversible climate changes due to carbon
dioxide emissions have already taken place, and future carbon
dioxide emissions would imply further irreversible effects on
the planet, with attendant long legacies for choices made by
contemporary society." -- Dr. Susan Solomon et
al.
The severity of damaging
human-induced climate change depends not only on the magnitude
of the change but also on the potential for irreversibility.
This paper shows that
the climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon
dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years
after emissions stop.
NOAA Scientist Susan Solomon Receives Highest Scientific HonorNational Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration News January 31,
2000
The White House today named Susan Solomon, a leading
atmospheric scientist at the Commerce Department's National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado, to
receive the 1999 National Medal of Science.
Antarctic Ice Shelf Set to Collapse Due to Warming Alister Doyle Reuters
January 19, 2009
"We've come to the Wilkins Ice Shelf to see its
final death throes," David Vaughan, a glaciologist at the
British Antarctic Survey (BAS), told Reuters after the first --
and probably last -- plane landed near the narrowest part of the
ice.
An international team of 10 researchers —
including Yale professors of geology and geophysics Mark Pagani
and Robert Berner — determined that current levels of carbon
dioxide have already surpassed the estimated cutoff level that
would cause damage to the planet. The study also found that this
threshold level is actually much lower than previously
estimated. ...Past research on greenhouse gases indicated that
450 parts per million of atmospheric CO2 would be the “tipping
point” beyond which the effects of global warming would begin to
rapidly escalate. But the study, which was headed by James
Hansen, a professor of Earth and Environmental Studies at
Columbia University and NASA’s lead climate scientist, revised
this theory, showing that this threshold level is closer to 350
ppm. The level of CO2 found in the atmosphere — 385 ppm — is
already higher than this, and is increasing annually by two ppm.
...In their paper, the researchers noted that if left unchecked,
current consumption of fossil fuels will eventually result in
levels of atmospheric CO2 that are double those of
pre-industrial civilization, leading, down the road, to “a
nearly ice-free planet.”
Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim? James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha,
David Beerling, Robert Berner, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Mark
Pagani, Maureen Raymo, Dana L. Royer, James C. Zachos -
NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies October 30, 2008 Abstract: Paleoclimate data
show that climate sensitivity is -3°C for doubled CO2,
including only fast feedback processes. Equilibrium
sensitivity, including slower surface albedo feedbacks, is
-6°C for doubled CO2 for the range of climate states between
glacial conditions and ice-free Antarctica. Decreasing CO2 was
the main cause of a cooling trend that began 50 million years
ago, the planet being nearly ice-free until CO2 fell to 450 ±
100 ppm; barring prompt policy changes, that critical level
will be passed, in the opposite direction, within decades.
If humanity wishes to
preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization
developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate
evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need
to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm, but
likely less than that. The largest uncertainty in the
target arises from possible changes of non-CO2 forcings. An
initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out
coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting
agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If
the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there
is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.
Dr. R.K. Pachauri
Head, UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Pachauri's
Blog November 5, 2008
"The presidential
elections in the US have vindicated the power of democracy as the most
responsive form of government of the people, by the people and for the
people. In respect of policies related to climate change, there was
obviously a major divergence between the position of the Federal Government
and that of the people at large, state governments and the cities in the US.
President-elect Barack Obama has not only been very clear in emphasizing the
need for the US to engage in global solutions to meet the challenge of
climate change but also in respect of bringing about a major shift in US
energy policy.
"The US now has a unique opportunity to assume leadership in
meeting the threat of climate change, and it would help greatly if the new
President were to announce a coherent and forward looking policy soon after
he takes office. There is every reason to believe that President Obama will
actually do so. This should please people across the globe, because US
leadership is critical for mounting global efforts to meet this threat
effectively. For this reason itself, apart from several others, the election
of Mr Obama is a development that should generate optimism all-round."
"Our heritage and ideals, our
code and standards
- the things we live by and teach our children
-
are preserved or diminished by how freely
we exchange ideas and
feelings."
Walt Disney
The script of the advert is similar in
tone to political speeches made by Obama and McCain during the
election season. An unseen narrator states that climate change can
be combated through wind and solar power as well as "end[ing] our
dependence on foreign oil". Over an image of a young child playing
with blocks, the narrator continues: "So why are we still stuck with
dirty and expensive energy? Because big oil spends hundreds of
millions of dollars to block clean energy. Lobbyists, ads, even
scandals. All to increase their profits, while America suffers."
IMAGE AND REVERSE IMAGE OF HURRICANE
KATRINA by Richard D. Masters
Weather-related Disasters Dominate Petra Low
Worldwatch Institute
October 2, 2008
In 2007, there were 874
weather-related disasters worldwide, a
13-percent increase over 2006 and the highest number since the systematic
recording of natural perils began in 1974. Weather-related disasters
around the world have been on the rise for decades: on average, 300 events
were recorded every year in the 1980s,
480 events in the 1990s, and 620 events in the last 10 years.
Strongest Storms Grow Stronger Yet Kenneth Chang
New York Times
September 3, 2008
A new study finds that the strongest
of hurricanes and typhoons have become even stronger over the last two and
a half decades, adding
grist to the contentious debate over whether global warming
has already made storms more destructive.
Hurricanes Are Getting Fiercer Quirin Schiermeier
Nature
September 3, 2008
In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis killed
more than 100,000 people in southern Myanmar. ...Rising ocean temperatures
are thought to be the main cause of the observed shift. The team
calculates that a 1 ºC increase in sea-surface temperatures would result
in a 31% increase in the global frequency of category 4 and 5 storms per
year: from 13 of those storms to 17. Since 1970, the tropical oceans have
warmed on average by around 0.5 ºC. Computer models suggest they may warm
by a further 2 ºC by 2100.
The increasing intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones James B. Elsner, James P.
Kossin & Thomas H. Jagger Nature
September 2008
Our results are qualitatively
consistent with the hypothesis
that as the seas warm, the ocean has more energy
to convert to tropical cyclone wind.
TALK RADIO
AND NEANDERTHAL CONGRESSMEN VS. CLIMATE SCIENCE
The Myth of the 1970s
Global Cooling Scientific Consensus There was no scientific consensus in the
1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age.
Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the
peer-reviewed literature even then. Thomas C. Peterson, William M. Connolley,
and John Fleck
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
September 2008
When the myth of
the 1970s global cooling scare arises in contemporary
discussion over climate change, it is most often in the form
of citations not to the scientific literature, but to news
media coverage. That is where U.S. Senator James Inhofe turned
for much of the evidence to support his argument in a U.S.
Senate floor speech in 2003. Chief among his
evidence was a frequently cited Newsweek story: “The cooling
world” (Gwynne 1975). The story drew from the latest global
temperature records, and suggested that cooling “may portend a
drastic decline for food production.” Citing the Kuklas’work
on increasing Northern Hemisphere snow and ice, and Reid
Bryson’s concerns about a long-term cooling trend, the
Newsweek story juxtaposes the possibility of cooling
temperatures and decreasing food production with rising global
populations. Other articles of the time featured similar
themes.
Even cursory review of the news media coverage of the issue
reveals that, just as there was no consensus at the time among
scientists, so was there also no consensus among journalists.
For example, these are titles from two New York Times
articles: “Scientists ask why world climate is changing; major
cooling may be ahead” (Sullivan 1975) and “Warming trend seen
in climate; two articles counter view that cold period is due”
(Sullivan 1975). Equally juxtaposed were The Cooling (Ponte
1976), which was published the year after Hothouse Earth
(Wilcox 1975).
However,
the
news coverage of the time does reflect what New York Times
science writer Andrew Revkin calls “the tyranny of the news
peg,” based on the idea that reporters need a “peg” on which
to hang a story. Developments that are dramatic or new tend to
draw the news media’s attention, Revkin argues, rather than
the complexity of a nuanced discussion within the scientific
community (Revkin 2005). A handy peg for climate
stories during the 1970s was the cold weather.
Ocean Heat September 20, 2008: Mankind's Fossil
Energy Folly Unleashed?
British Jury Decides Threat of Global Warming Justifies Breaking Law Michael McCarthy The
Independent (UK) September 11, 2008
"When a jury of normal people say it is legitimate for a direct action
group to shut down a coal-fired power station because of the harm it does
to our planet, then where does that leave Government energy policy? We
have the clean technologies at hand to power our economy. It's time we
turned to them instead of coal." Defendant Ben Stewart, Greenpeace
The threat of global warming is so
great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth
of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a
verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at
Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.
Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful
excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent
even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of "lawful
excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to
property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door
of a burning house to tackle a fire.
...During the eight-day trial, the world's leading climate
scientist, Professor James Hansen of Nasa, who had flown from America to
give evidence, appealed to the Prime Minister personally to "take a
leadership role" in cancelling the plan and scrapping the idea of a
coal-fired future for Britain.
"Governments, utilities, and the fossil fuel
industry have presented public faces acknowledging the importance of
climate change and claiming that they are taking appropriate actions. Yet
the facts, as shown in this document, contradict their claims.
Construction of new coal-fired power plants makes it unrealistic to hope
for the prompt phase-out of coal emissions and thus makes it practically
impossible to avert climate disasters for today’s young people and future
generations. Recognition of these basic facts by the defendants,
realization that the facts were also known by the government, utility, and
fossil fuel industry, and realization that the actions needed to protect
life and property of the present and future generations were not being
taken undoubtedly played a role in the decision of the defendants to act
as they did. " Jim Hansen
Statement of witness James E. Hansen
NEW YORK, NY (August 25, 2008) - Attorney General Andrew
M. Cuomo today announced he is suing the federal Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) for failing to adopt regulations that control emissions of
global warming pollution from oil refineries. Cuomo is leading a group of
twelve states, the District of Columbia, and the City of New York in a
suit that challenges the EPA's refusal to require new or renovated oil
refineries to install technologies that control global warming pollution,
in violation of the Clean Air Act.
The EPA's refusal to control pollution from oil
refineries is the latest example of the Bush Administrations do-nothing
policy on global warming, said Cuomo. Oil refineries contribute
substantially to global warming, posing grave threats to New York's
environment, health, and economy. As long as the Bush EPA continues its
blatant violation of the Clean Air Act and its shameful refusal to control
global warming pollution, I will continue to fight them aggressively on
all fronts.
Cuomo's suit announced today charges that the EPA
violated the Clean Air Act when it refused to issue standards - known as
New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) - for controlling global warming
pollution emissions from oil refineries. These standards ensure that new
or renovated sources of air pollution install state-of-the-art emissions
control technologies. The Clean Air Act specifically requires the EPA to
adopt NSPS for oil refineries, as well as power plants and other major
stationary sources, if the EPA determines they emit air pollution that
poses a danger public health and welfare. Nonetheless, on June 24, 2008,
the EPA finalized new air pollution control regulations for oil refineries
without setting a NSPS for global warming pollution.
Oil refineries account for over 3% of the total energy
consumption in the United States. Due to their large energy consumption,
oil refineries are major sources of carbon dioxide, accounting for almost
15% of the carbon dioxide emitted from industrial processes nationally.
These refineries also emit large amounts of methane, an especially potent
global warming pollutant.
The suit announced today by Cuomo is the latest front in
the battle that New York and other states are waging to force the EPA to
use its authority under the Clean Air Act to control sources of global
warming pollution. For example, Cuomo is leading coalitions of states in
lawsuits to require the EPA to set NSPS for global warming pollution
emissions from power plants and to uphold the right of states to regulate
pollution emissions from automobiles.
I am committed to using the power of my Office to step
in when the federal government has failed to take action on critical
issues affecting New York, said Cuomo. The EPA's repeated failure to
control global warming pollution will not go unchallenged by New York
State.
Today's challenge was filed in the federal Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Joining Cuomo in the action
are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, New
Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, as
well as the District of Columbia and the City of New York. The suit seeks
to vacate the EPA's decision not to control oil refinery emissions of
global warming pollution and to order the EPA to adopt proper NSPS.
Although no petroleum refineries operate within New York State, major
contributors to global warming are an acute concern to the State as they
pose severe threats to its environment, public health, and economy.
The case is being handled by Assistant Attorneys General
Morgan Costello and Michael Myers of the Environmental Protection Bureau,
under the supervision of Special Deputy Attorney General for Environmental
Protection Katherine Kennedy.
"We know that the
administration's efforts have been about covering up the real dangers of
global warming and hiding facts from the public. This cover-up is being
directed from the White House and the Office of the Vice President." Senator Barbara Boxer
Chairman, Environment and Public
Works
Cheney's Office Pushed Purge Of Climate Change Testimony Siobhan Hughes
Wall Street Journal
July 8, 2008
Cheney Wanted Cuts in Climate Testimony H. Josef Hebert
AP July
8, 2008
Lord Stern of Brentford
made headlines in 2006 with a report that said countries needed to spend
1% of their GDP to stop greenhouse gases rising to dangerous levels.
Failure to do this would lead to damage costing much more, the report
warned - at least 5% and perhaps more than 20% of global GDP. But speaking
yesterday in London, Stern said evidence that climate change was happening
faster than had been previously thought meant that emissions needed to be
reduced even more sharply.
"Democracy is not working the
way it's intended to work." James Hanson, NASA Climate Scientist
James Hansen, one of the world's
leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of
large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against
humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about
global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links
between smoking and cancer.
...He will accuse the chief executive officers of companies
such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the
disinformation about climate change they are spreading.
...He is also considering personally targeting members of
Congress who have a poor track record on climate change in the coming
November elections. He will campaign to have several of them unseated.
He will tell the House select committee on energy
independence and global warming this afternoon that he is now 99% certain
that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has already risen beyond
the safe level.
...He wants to see a moratorium on new coal-fired power
plants, coupled with the creation of a huge grid of low-loss electric
power lines buried under ground and spread across America, in order to
give wind and solar power a chance of competing. "The new US president
would have to take the initiative analogous to Kennedy's decision to go to
the moon."
June 23, 2008 U.S.
House Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
My
presentation today is exactly 20 years after my 23 June 1988 testimony to
Congress, which alerted the public that global warming was underway.
There are striking similarities between then and now, but one big
difference.
Again a wide gap has developed between what is understood
about global warming by the relevant scientific community and what is
known by policymakers and the public. Now, as then, frank assessment of
scientific data yields conclusions that are shocking to the body politic.
Now, as then, I can assert that these conclusions have a certainty
exceeding 99 percent.
The difference is that now we have used up all slack in the
schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb.
The next President and Congress must define a course next year in which
the United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility
for
the present dangerous situation.
Otherwise it will become impractical to constrain atmospheric
carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas produced in burning fossil fuels, to a
level that prevents the climate system from passing tipping points that
lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of
humanity’s control.
Changes needed to preserve creation, the planet on which
civilization developed, are clear. But the changes have been blocked
by special interests, focused on short-term profits, who hold sway in
Washington and other capitals.
I argue that a path yielding energy independence and a
healthier environment is, barely, still possible. It requires a
transformative change of direction in Washington in the next year.
On 23 June 1988 I testified
to a hearing, chaired by Senator Tim Wirth of Colorado, that the Earth had
entered a long-term warming trend and that human-made greenhouse gases
almost surely were responsible. I noted that global warming enhanced
both extremes of the water cycle, meaning stronger droughts and forest
fires, on the one hand, but also heavier rains and floods.
My testimony two decades ago was greeted with skepticism.
But while skepticism is the lifeblood of science, it can confuse the
public. As scientists examine a topic from all perspectives, it may
appear that nothing is known with confidence. But from such broad
openminded study of all data, valid conclusions can be drawn.
My conclusions in 1988 were built on a wide range of inputs
from basic physics, planetary studies, observations of on-going changes,
and climate models. The evidence was strong enough that I could say
it was time to “stop waffling”. I was sure that time would bring the
scientific community to a similar consensus, as it has.
While international recognition of global warming was swift,
actions have faltered. The U.S. refused to place limits on its
emissions, and developing countries such as China and India rapidly
increased their emissions.
What is at stake?
Warming so far, about two degrees Fahrenheit over land areas, seems almost
innocuous, being less than day-to-day weather fluctuations. But more
warming is already “in-the-pipeline”, delayed only by the great inertia of
the world ocean. And climate is nearing dangerous tipping points.
Elements of a “perfect storm”, a global cataclysm, are assembled.
Climate can reach points such that amplifying feedbacks spur
large rapid changes. Arctic sea ice is a current example. Global warming
initiated sea ice melt, exposing darker ocean that absorbs more sunlight,
melting more ice. As a result, without any additional greenhouse gases,
the Arctic soon will be ice-free in the summer.
More ominous tipping points loom. West Antarctic and
Greenland ice sheets are vulnerable to even small additional warming.
These two-mile-thick behemoths respond slowly at first, but if
disintegration gets well underway it will become unstoppable. Debate among
scientists is only about how much sea level would rise by a given date. In
my opinion, if
emissions follow a business-as-usual scenario, sea level rise of at least
two meters is likely this century. Hundreds of millions of people would
become refugees. No stable shoreline would be reestablished in any time
frame that humanity can conceive.
Animal and plant species are already stressed by climate
change. Polar and alpine species will be pushed off the planet, if warming
continues. Other species attempt to migrate, but as some are extinguished
their interdependencies can cause ecosystem collapse. Mass extinctions, of
more than half the species on the planet, have occurred several times when
the Earth warmed as much as expected if greenhouse gases continue to
increase. Biodiversity recovered, but it required hundreds of thousands of
years.
The disturbing conclusion,
documented in a paper2 I have written with several of the
world’s leading climate experts, is that the safe level of atmospheric
carbon dioxide is no more than 350 ppm (parts per million) and it may be
less. Carbon dioxide amount is already 385 ppm and
rising about 2 ppm per year. Stunning corollary: the oft-stated goal to
keep global warming less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)
is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation.
These conclusions are based on paleoclimate data showing how
the Earth responded to past levels of greenhouse gases and on observations
showing how the world is responding to today’s carbon dioxide amount. The
consequences of continued increase of greenhouse gases extend far beyond
extermination of species and future sea level rise.
Arid subtropical climate zones are expanding poleward.
Already an average expansion of about 250 miles has occurred, affecting
the southern United States, the Mediterranean region, Australia and
southern Africa. Forest fires and drying-up of lakes will increase further
unless carbon dioxide growth is halted and reversed.
Mountain glaciers are the source of fresh water for hundreds
of millions of people. These glaciers are receding world-wide, in the
Himalayas, Andes and Rocky Mountains. They will disappear, leaving their
rivers as trickles in late summer and fall, unless the growth of carbon
dioxide is reversed.
Coral reefs, the rainforest of the ocean, are home for one-third of the
species in the sea.
Coral reefs are under stress for several reasons, including
warming of the ocean, but especially because of ocean acidification, a
direct effect of added carbon dioxide. Ocean life dependent on carbonate
shells and skeletons is threatened by dissolution as the ocean becomes
more acid.
Such phenomena, including the instability of Arctic sea ice
and the great ice sheets at today’s carbon dioxide amount, show that we
have already gone too far. We must draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide to
preserve the planet we know. A level of no more than 350 ppm is
still feasible, with the help of reforestation and improved agricultural
practices, but just barely – time is running out.
Requirements to halt carbon
dioxide growth follow from the size of fossil carbon reservoirs. Coal
towers over oil and gas. Phase out of coal use except where the carbon is
captured and stored below ground is the primary requirement for solving
global warming.
Oil is used in vehicles where it is impractical to capture
the carbon. But oil is running out. To preserve our planet we must also
ensure that the next mobile energy source is not obtained by squeezing oil
from coal, tar shale or other fossil fuels.
Fossil fuel reservoirs are finite, which is the main reason
that prices are rising. We must move beyond fossil fuels eventually.
Solution of the climate problem requires that we move to carbon-free
energy promptly.
Special interests have blocked transition to our renewable
energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil
companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco
companies discredited the smoking-cancer link. Methods are sophisticated,
including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global
warming.
CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and
are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my
opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and
nature.
Conviction of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal CEOs will be no
consolation, if we pass on a runaway climate to our children. Humanity
would be impoverished by ravages of continually shifting shorelines and
intensification of regional climate extremes. Loss of countless species
would leave a more desolate planet.
If politicians remain at loggerheads, citizens must lead. We
must demand a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. We must block
fossil fuel interests who aim to squeeze every last drop of oil from
public lands, off-shore, and wilderness areas. Those last drops are no
solution. They yield continued exorbitant profits for a short-sighted
self-serving industry, but no alleviation of our addiction or long-term
energy source.
Moving from fossil fuels to
clean energy is challenging, yet transformative in ways that will be
welcomed. Cheap, subsidized fossil fuels engendered bad habits. We import
food from halfway around the world, for example, even with healthier
products available from nearby fields. Local
produce would be competitive if not for fossil fuel subsidies and the fact
that climate change damages and costs, due to fossil fuels, are also borne
by the public.
A price on emissions that cause harm is essential. Yes, a
carbon tax. Carbon tax with 100 percent dividend3 is needed to
wean us off fossil fuel addiction. Tax and dividend allows the
marketplace, not politicians, to make investment decisions.
Carbon tax on coal, oil and gas is simple, applied at the
first point of sale or port of entry. The entire tax must be returned to
the public, an equal amount to each adult, a half-share for
children. This dividend can be deposited monthly in an individual’s bank
account.
Carbon tax with 100 percent dividend is non-regressive. On
the contrary, you can bet that low and middle income people will find ways
to limit their carbon tax and come out ahead. Profligate energy users will
have to pay for their excesses.
Demand for low-carbon high-efficiency products will spur
innovation, making our products more competitive on international markets.
Carbon emissions will plummet as energy efficiency and renewable energies
grow rapidly. Black soot, mercury and other fossil fuel emissions will
decline. A brighter, cleaner future, with energy independence, is
possible.
Washington likes to spend
our tax money line-by-line. Swarms of high-priced lobbyists in alligator
shoes help Congress decide where to spend, and in turn the lobbyists’
clients provide “campaign” money.
The public must send a message to Washington. Preserve our
planet, creation, for our children and grandchildren, but do not use that
as an excuse for more tax-and-spend. Let this be our motto: “One hundred
percent dividend or fight!”
The next President must make a national low-loss electric
grid an imperative. It will allow dispersed renewable energies to supplant
fossil fuels for power generation. Technology exists for direct-current
high-voltage buried transmission lines. Trunk lines can be completed in
less than a decade and expanded analogous to interstate highways.
Government must also change utility regulations so that
profits do not depend on selling ever more energy, but instead increase
with efficiency. Building code and vehicle efficiency requirements must be
improved and put on a path toward carbon neutrality.
The fossil-industry maintains its strangle-hold on Washington
via demagoguery, using China and other developing nations as scapegoats to
rationalize inaction. In fact, we produced most of the excess carbon in
the air today, and it is to our advantage as a nation to move smartly in
developing ways to reduce emissions. As with the ozone problem, developing
countries can be allowed limited extra time to reduce emissions. They will
cooperate: they have much to lose from climate change and much to gain
from clean air and reduced dependence on fossil fuels.
We must establish fair agreements with other countries.
However, our own tax and dividend should start immediately. We have much
to gain from it as a nation, and other countries will copy our success. If
necessary, import duties on products from uncooperative countries can
level the playing field, with the import tax added to the dividend pool.
Democracy works, but sometimes churns slowly. Time is short.
The 2008 election is critical for the planet. If Americans turn out to
pasture the most brontosaurian congressmen, if Washington adapts to
address climate change, our children and grandchildren can still hold
great expectations.
1
Dr. James E. Hansen, a physicist by training, directs the NASA Goddard
Institute for Space Studies, a laboratory of the Goddard Space Flight
Center and a unit of the Columbia University Earth Institute, but he
speaks as a private citizen today at the National Press Club and at a
Briefing to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global
Warming.
2
Target atmospheric CO2: where should humanity aim? J. Hansen, M. Sato, P.
Kharecha, D. Beerling, R. Berner, V. Masson-Delmotte, M. Raymo, D.L.
Royer, J.C. Zachos, http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126 and http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1135
3
The proposed “tax and 100% dividend” is based largely on the cap and
dividend approach described by Peter Barnes in “Who Owns the Sky: Our
Common Assets and the Future of Capitalism”, Island Press, Washington,
D.C., 2001 (http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=116&subsecID=149&contentID=3867).
Committee Examines Political
Interference with Climate Science
Video of the March 19 2007 Hearing
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
---- JUNE 20, 2008
----
BUSH INVOKES
EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE
TO SAVE BIG OIL FROM CO2 RESPONSIBILITY
"I don't think
we've had a situation like this since Richard Nixon was president; where
the president of the United States may have been involved in acting
contrary to law, and the evidence that would determine that question for
Congress in exercising our oversight is being blocked by an assertion of
executive privilege." Henry Waxman, Chairman
U.S. House Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform
White House Asserts Executive Privilege in EPA Investigation Erica Werner
AP June
20, 2008
Waxman contends the White House
intervened with EPA to produce more industry-friendly outcomes in setting
new smog standards and denying California and more than a dozen other
states permission to cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.
For
months, the Committee has been investigating EPA's decision to prevent
California and other states from reducing greenhouse gas emissions from
motor vehicles and its decision to adopt new ozone air quality standards
weaker than those recommended by the agency's scientific experts.
These investigations have shown that the decisions in these
important environmental matters were made not at EPA, but in the White
House. In both cases, the scientists, the agency career staff, and EPA
Administrator Johnson wanted to take stronger action to protect the
environment. And in both cases, the White House rejected the agency's
position.
Today the President has asserted executive privilege to
prevent the Committee from learning why he and his staff overruled EPA.
There are thousands of internal White House documents that would show
whether the President and his staff acted lawfully. But the President has
said they must be kept from Congress and the public.
In the case of the California motor vehicle standards, we
learned that EPA's experts and
career staff all supported granting the California petition. In a
briefing prepared for Stephen Johnson, the Administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency,
EPA's own lawyers said: "we don't believe there are any good arguments
against granting the waiver. All of the arguments ... are likely to lose
in court if we are sued."
Administrator Johnson listened and was prepared to support a
partial approval to California's request. But then the White House
intervened. In December, after secret communications with White House
officials, Administrator Johnson ignored the law and the evidence and
denied California's petition.
In the case of the ozone standards, the same pattern
happened. We learned that EPA's
expert advisory panel unanimously recommended a new standard for
protecting the environment. After considering all of the
alternatives, Administrator Johnson agreed with the new approach.
He was opposed, however, by industry and Susan Dudley, the
Administrator of the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory
Affairs. And once again, the White House intervened.
On the evening before the final
rule was released, President Bush rejected the unanimous recommendation of
both EPA's experts and Administrator Johnson and instructed EPA to abandon
the new standard.
The Clean Air Act is clear about what can be considered and
what cannot be considered when EPA makes decisions under its authority. In
both cases, the EPA's methodical and scientific process pointed to
specific outcomes. In both cases, the outcome dramatically changed when
the White House became involved.
This Committee has a fundamental obligation to learn the
truth about what actually happened on these critical health and
environmental decisions. That is why we have been seeking documents in
both cases that would provide important details about the President's role
in directing Administrator Johnson's actions. This morning I have
been informed that the White House is asserting executive privilege over
thousands of documents the Committee is seeking. This is an
extraordinary step. Administrator Johnson has repeatedly insisted he
reached his decisions on California's petition and the new ozone standard
on his own, relying on his best judgment. Today's assertion of
executive privilege raises serious questions about Administrator Johnson's
credibility and the involvement of the President. Without the
remaining documents, it will be nearly impossible to fully understand the
President's role in overruling the unanimous recommendations of EPA's own
experts.
We had scheduled a vote on a contempt resolution for this
morning for Mr. Johnson and Ms. Dudley. We will not have that vote in
light of the executive privilege claim. I want to talk with my colleagues
on both sides about this new development and consider all our options
before deciding how we should proceed.
RESOLUTION RECOMMENDING THAT THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FIND
STEPHEN L. JOHNSON, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,
AND SUSAN DUDLEY, ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF INFORMATION AND REGULATORY
AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, WHITE HOUSE, IN
CONTEMPT OF CONGRESSFOR REFUSAL TO COMPLY WITH SUBPOENAS DULY ISSUED BY THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM U.S. House Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform
June 20, 2008
"SHAMEFUL, OUTRAGEOUS AND
IRRESPONSIBLE!" Governor O'Malley, Maryland "A DERELICTION OF DUTY!"
Senator Frank Lautenberg STATE
GOVERNORS EXPRESS EXTREME OUTRAGE AT EPA DENIAL OF CALIFORNIA EMISSIONS WAIVER
January 24, 2007 FED EPA DIRECTOR JOHNSON GRILLED BY CALIFORNIA'S BOXER ON C-SPAN
Alaska Will Sue Over Polar Bear Listing, Palin Says Dan Joling
Anchorage Daily News/AP
May 22, 2008
Climate models
that predict continued loss of sea ice, the main habitat of polar bears,
during summers are unreliable, Palin said.
The announcement drew a strong response from the primary
author of the listing petition.
"She's either grossly misinformed or intentionally
misleading, and both are unbecoming," said Kassie Siegel of the Center for
Biological Diversity. "Alaska
deserves better."
Siegel said it was unconscionable for Palin to ignore
overwhelming evidence of global warming's threat to sea ice, the polar
bear's habitat. The WWF said observations on ice coverage and
thickness pointed toward a record low for the second year in a row,
continuing a "catastrophic" trend that could threaten polar wildlife and
accelerate global warming.
"If you take reduced ice thickness into account, there is
probably less ice overall in the Arctic this year than in any other year
since monitoring began," said Martin Sommerkorn, senior climate adviser of
the WWF's Arctic program.
The Gore Derangement Syndrome Paul Krugman New York
Times October 15, 2007 ...If science says that we have a big problem
that can't be solved with tax cuts or bombs - well, the science must be
rejected, and the scientists must be slimed. ....Which brings us to the
biggest reason the right hates Mr. Gore: in his case the smear campaign
has failed. He's taken everything they could throw at him, and emerged
more respected, and more credible, than ever. And it drives them crazy.
A Prize for Mr. Gore and Science Editorial New York
Times October 15, 2007 ...It shouldn't have to be
left to a private citizen - even one so well known as Mr. Gore - or a
panel of scientists to raise that alarm or prove what is now clearly an
undeniable link or champion solutions to a problem that endangers the
entire planet. That should be, and must be the job of governments. And
governments - above all the Bush administration - have failed miserably.
Gore Wins Nobel Peace Prize
Aftenpolten (NORWAY)
October 12, 2007
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize for 2007 on Friday to former US Vice President Al Gore and the
United Nations' climate panel, citing the importance of battling global
warming.
US Must Take the Lead to
Avert Eco-disaster Robin McKie The
Observer (UK)
January 18, 2009
That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist
and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only
urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating
climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action
will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he
added.
Critics Angry at Bush Climate Plan Roger Harrabin
BBC (UK)
September 29, 2007
US President George W. Bush
infuriated his critics by professing world leadership on climate change at
his meeting of the top 16 world economies - while offering no new
substantive policy and implicitly rejecting binding emissions controls.
Asia's Brown Clouds 'Warm Planet' BBC
August 1, 2007
Clouds of pollution over the Indian Ocean
appear to cause as much warming as greenhouse gases released by human activity,
a study has suggested.
Our general circulation model simulations, which
take into account the recently observed widespread occurrence of
vertically extended atmospheric brown clouds over the Indian Ocean and
Asia, suggest that atmospheric brown clouds contribute as much as the
recent increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases to regional lower
atmospheric warming trends. We propose that the combined warming trend
of 0.25 K per decade may be sufficient to account for the observed
retreat of the Himalayan glaciers.
Asian Brown Cloud of Pollution Contributes to Gobal Warming Roger Highfield Telegraph (UK)
August 8,
2007 The Asian Brown Cloud, the thick haze caused by
pollution that hangs over southern Asia, is rapidly melting Himalayan
glaciers and could precipitate an environmental disaster that could
affect billions of people, scientists have warned.
The study, published by the US
National Academy of Sciences, shows that carbon dioxide emissions have
been increasing by about 3 per cent a year during this decade, compared
with 1.1 per cent a year in the 1990s. The significance is that this is
much faster than even the highest scenario outlined in this year's massive
reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - and
suggests that their dire forecasts of devastating harvests, dwindling
water supplies, melting ice and loss of species are likely to be
understating the threat facing the world.
Proceedings of the National Acedemy of Sciences
of the United States of America May 22, 2007
Europe Furious at US Climate Call Fiona Harvey
Financial Times (UK)
June 1, 2007
Attitudes within Europe hardened on Friday
as some politicians and activists accused Mr. Bush of trying to wreck next
week’s summit, and UN negotiations on climate change, set to take place this
December.
"Bush's
attempts to obstruct any meaningful agreement at the G-8 summit in June are as
criminal as they are expected; Merkel must now make Bush's isolation crystal
clear in Heiligendamm." Greenpeace director John Sauven
USA Rejects German Climate Position as G-8 Summit Nears Jeremy Lovell USA
Today May 25,
2007
G8 Riots Erupt in Germany
Financial Times (UK)
June
3, 2007
The riots on Saturday in Rostock,
north-eastern Germany, left almost a thousand people injured and overshadowed
Germany's preparations for the summit.
Action Plan or Stalling Tactic?
Guardian Unlimited (UK) June 1, 2007 Robin Oakley, of Greenpeace, said the president's plan was "designed to kick
this issue into the long grass until he leaves office". He said: "Bush
should take his cue from an increasing number of states, such as California, and
engage with the international community by committing to deep mandatory cuts in
carbon emissions now, not voluntary cuts at some unspecified point in the
future."
CALIFORNIA'S
SCHWARZENEGGER TO TAKE ON BUSH'S ENVIRONMENTAL PETROLEUM AGENCY (EPA) IN
HUGE GLOBAL WARMING LAWSUIT
June 13, 2007
The Honorable Stephen L.
Johnson
Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20460
RE: Regulations to
Control Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Motor Vehicles; Request for Waiver
of Preemption Under Clean Air Act Section 209(b),
DOCKET ID
EPA-HQ-OAR-2006-0173
Dear Mr. Administrator,
Nearly eighteen months ago, the State of California requested a
federal preemption waiver for California's motor vehicle greenhouse gas
emissions standards. Last Friday, you told the U.S. House of
Representatives Special Committee on Global Warming that you will wait
until late next year to decide on whether to issue regulations controlling
emissions from vehicles. More recently still, the U.S. Department of
Transportation defended the fact that department officials are contacting
members of Congress and urging them to oppose our efforts to fight global
climate change. Under your time period, California will have waited about
three years for a decision that has been made in our favor more than forty
times in the past. By that time, especially given a federal agency's
active opposition to our waiver, our respective governments will be
embroiled in a lawsuit over these regulations.
We provided 180-day notice on April 26, 2007, of our intent to sue
under the Clean Air Act and Administrative Procedure Act, which provide
mechanisms for compelling delayed agency action. However, we had frankly
held out hope that this dispute would be resolved without the time and
expense of a lengthy court battle. Given your comments in front of the
Special Committee and the work of the U.S. Department of Transportation, a
lawsuit on the 181st day now appears to be inevitable.
The effects of climate change in California and all over the world
are not theoretical science - they are already happening. We cannot afford
to go any longer without efforts to turn the tide. Scientific consensus
indicates climate change's impact on every aspect of our daily lives. Let
me give you one alarming example: California's snowpack - the primary
source of drinking water for two-thirds of Californians - will be reduced
by up to 40 percent over the next few decades.
I ask you act immediately on California's longstanding request for a
federal preemption waiver for California's motor vehicle greenhouse gas
emissions standards waiver request. It is the right thing to do. It is
urgent. And it is the law.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is obligated under
the federal Clean Air Act to grant in a reasonable time period our request
for action. If the EPA does not act on California's waiver request by
October 22, 2007, the Air Resources Board will file a lawsuit. While
protecting Californians from the threat of global climate change should
not be forced into the court room, I am fully prepared to take whatever
legal or political actions are necessary to ensure this threat is avoided.
If there remains any doubt as to whether the EPA has the authority to
regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant, the Supreme Court's decision in
Massachusetts et al. v. EPA ((2007) ___ U.S. ___ [127 S.Ct. 1438, 75
U.S.L.W. 4149]), should lay it to rest.
California and the thirteen other states that have adopted or are
adopting the California standards should not have to wait three years to
take action in protecting the public health and welfare of its citizens.
California supports a strong federal program that aggressively reduces
greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, and we will work with the EPA when
it takes on the task recently announced by the White House. But the EPA
must grant California's waiver. There is simply no legal justification to
do anything else. If I have misunderstood your intentions and you plan to
act on California's waiver request before October 22, 2007, the end of our
180-day notice period, I would welcome the opportunity to discuss next
steps with you.
Sincerely
Arnold Schwarzeneggercc: Linda S. Adams, Secretary for
California EPA
William L. Wehrum, U.S. EPA Acting Assistant Administrator
David Dickinson, EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality
The Honorable Deval Patrick, Governor of Massachusetts
The Honorable Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York
The Honorable Christine Gregoire, Governor of Washington
The Honorable Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico
The Honorable Ted Kulongoski, Governor of Oregon
The Honorable Edward Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania
The Honorable Janet Napolitano, Governor of Arizona
The Honorable Jim Douglas, Governor of Vermont
The Honorable Jon Corzine, Governor of New Jersey
The Honorable M. Jodi Rell, Governor of Connecticut
The Honorable John Baldacci, Governor of Maine
The Honorable Donald L. Carcieri, Governor of Rhode Island
The Honorable Martin O'Malley, Governor of Maryland
$900 Billion of Institutional Investors
Pressure Exxon Mobil on Global Warming
Pegasus News Wire
May 25, 2007
Two dozen leading institutional investors are pushing for the removal of
Exxon Mobil
board member Michael Boskin due to the company's inaction on the serious
business risks from climate change. ...Investors opposing Boskin's reappointment
include the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS), F&C
Management Ltd., Illinois State Board of Investment, New York City Employees
Retirement System, New York State Common Retirement Fund, the California,
Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, North Carolina and Vermont State Treasurers, labor
funds such as SEIU and AFSCME, and a dozen other investors. ...Exxon
Mobil has made no major investments on renewables and continues to fund groups
that question the scientific consensus on climate change.
SUSPICIOUS PHDS FINALLY
FIGURE OUT ZERO SUM ENERGY GAME
UNIVERSITIES WARY OF OIL-FUNDED BIO-ENERGY RESEARCH GRANTS
Stanford Presses ExxonMobil on Global Warming
GreenBiz.com
May 18, 2007
"What's happening to the
Earth as a whole is a catastrophe, and the disappearance of Arctic sea ice has
got to be one of the first indicators of the catastrophic changes." Professor Peter Wadhams Head of
Polar Ocean Physics Group, University
of Cambridge
Global Warming Could Be Worse Than Thought Alex Johnson MSNBC
April 12, 2007
Scientists had previously predicted that
the summer sea ice would disappear from the Arctic by 2040. But Wadhams'
measurements indicate that the thinning was already approaching 50 percent and
that the ice could disappear by 2020.
DOES BIG OIL RUN CANADA
THE WAY IT RUNS THE U.S.?
"In my opinion, [Canada's Climate Plan] is a complete and total fraud.
It is designed to mislead the Canadian people."
Gore Calls Canada Climate Plan a 'Fraud'
AP/My Way
April 29, 2007
"What's happening to
the Earth as a whole is a catastrophe, and the disappearance of Arctic sea ice
has got to be one of the first indicators of the catastrophic changes." Professor Peter Wadhams Head of
Polar Ocean Physics Group,
University of Cambridge
Global Warming Could Be Worse Than Thought Alex Johnson
MSNBC April
12, 2007
Scientists had previously predicted that
the summer sea ice would disappear from the Arctic by 2040. But Wadhams'
measurements indicate that the thinning was already approaching 50 percent and
that the ice could disappear by 2020.
GLOBAL WARMING: THE NEWS IS BAD
"It is the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people
even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit." IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri
Worldwide Impact from Climate Change Predicted
News Blaze
April 7, 2007
RELEASED
Working Group II Contribution to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report
Climate Change 2007:
Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
Sustainable development can reduce
vulnerability to climate change, and climate change could impede nations’
abilities to achieve sustainable development pathways. Sustainable
development can reduce vulnerability to climate change by enhancing
adaptive capacity and increasing resilience. At present, however, few
plans for promoting sustainability have explicitly included either
adapting to climate change impacts, or promoting adaptive capacity.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, in direct violation of its declared mission to warn
Americans about “dangerous weather” and “improve our understanding and
stewardship of the environment,” is actively covering up the strong and
growing scientific evidence linking more powerful hurricanes to global
warming. As a result, NOAA is placing tens of millions of coastal
Americans at risk of the kind of catastrophic impacts created in 2005 when
Hurricane Katrina killed 1,500 people, displaced two million others, and
inflicted $200 billion in damages. Because of this cover up, both NOAA
director Conrad Lautenbacher and Max Mayfield, head of the National
Hurricane Center (a subset of NOAA), should resign immediately. ...Max
Mayfield has consistently denied the global warming link without offering
any scientific data to explain the observed rise in recent hurricane
intensity. ...Also troubling is the tact that the websites of both the
National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service (another subset
of NOAA) repeatedly feature the work of hurricane meteorologist William
Gray, a widely discredited denier of the very phenomenon of human-induced
global warming. Right after Katrina, speaking on a separate website partly
funded by ExxonMobil, Gray blatantly declared
that only grossly ignorant people could believe global warming and
hurricanes are connected.
Max Mayfield Joins
Miami ABC Station
ABC WPBF-TV25 March 29, 2007
The former director of the
National Hurricane Center said Thursday he will join WPLG-TV, an ABC
affiliate, as their hurricane specialist. Mayfield said he has received
many offers since retiring in January...
A top hurricane forecaster called Al
Gore "a gross alarmist" Friday for making an Oscar-winning documentary
about global warming. ...Kerry Emanuel, an MIT professor who had feuded
with Gray over global warming, said Gray has wrongly "dug (his) heels in"
even though there is ample evidence that the world is getting hotter.
The broadcast public relations firm
Medialink Worldwide produces a video news release (VNR) titled, “Global
Warming and Hurricanes: All Hot Air?” Medialink was hired to make the VNR
by Tech Central Station, a project of the Republican lobbying and PR firm
DCI Group. ExxonMobil, a client of the DCI
group, gave Tech Central Science Foundation $95,000 in 2003 and specified
that those funds be used for “climate change support.” The VNR features
meteorologists Dr. William Gray and Dr. James J. O’Brien who deny there’s
a link between global warming and hurricane intensity. Gray has said in
the past that global warming is a “hoax,” while O’Brien is listed as an
expert at the George C. Marshall Institute, which in 2004 received
$170,000 from ExxonMobil. The VNR is aired by
WTOK-11 in Meridian, Mississippi on May 31, 2006. The segment is re-voiced
by the station anchor, Tom Daniels, who introduces the piece by saying,
“Hurricane seasons for the next 20 years could be severe. But don’t blame
global warming.” He does not disclose that the report was produced by a PR
firm that was paid by an organization funded by
ExxonMobil.
For the first time,
dozens of institutional investors managing $4 trillion in assets called on US
lawmakers to enact strong federal legislation to curb the pollution causing
global climate change. Joined by a dozen leading US companies, the investor
group outlined the business and economic rationale for climate action as they
called for a national policy that reduces greenhouse gas emissions consistent
with targets scientists say are needed to avoid the dangerous impacts of global
warming.
...The 65
signers include institutional investors and asset managers such as Merrill
Lynch, and the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), as well
as leading corporations such as BP America, Allianz, PG&E, DuPont, Alcoa, Sun
Microsystems and National Grid.
In endorsing the statement, investors and companies sent a
strong message that climate policy uncertainty and the lack of federal
regulations may be undermining their long-term competitiveness because it is
preventing them from investing in clean energy and climate-friendly technologies
and practices.
LANDMARK CO2 POLLUTION
RULING
WILL SPUR CLEAN ENERGY GROWTH
"Naughty boy! How dare you lie
to your Mommy Earth!"
BUSH
AND
EXXONMOBIL
SPANKED!
U.S. SUPREME COURT SHIFTS BURDEN OF
PROOF TO DISPROVING
CLIMATE CHANGE
"This case is exceptionally
important because it is focused on an issue that most scientists say is
the greatest scientific issue of our day.”
Barton Thompson, Jr., Director
Stanford Institute of the Environment at Stanford Law School
Massachusetts, et al. v. Environmental Protection Agency, et al. Rebecca Cho Medill News
Northwestern University
The Supreme Court ordered the
federal government on Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon
dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on
global warming. In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives
the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the
emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
today called on the world’s younger generation to take better care of
Planet Earth in the face of global warming than his own.
“We are all complicit in the process of global warming.
Unsustainable practices are deeply entrenched in our everyday lives. But
in the absence of decisive measures, the true cost of our actions will be
borne by succeeding generations, starting with yours,” Mr. Ban
told a UN International School conference in the General Assembly Hall
in New York.
“That would be an unconscionable legacy; one which we must
all join hands to avert. As it stands, the damage already inflicted on our
ecosystem will take decades, perhaps centuries, to reverse – if we act
now.
“Unfortunately, my generation has been somewhat careless in
looking after our one and only planet. But I am hopeful that is finally
changing. And I am also hopeful that your generation will prove far better
stewards of our environment; in fact, looking around this hall today, I
have a strong sense that you already are,” he added.
Mr. Ban cited his own childhood in war-ravaged Korea as the
starting point of his identification with the UN which ended hostilities
on the peninsula. “I grew up viewing the United Nations as a saviour; an
organization which helped my country, the Republic of Korea, recover and
rebuild from a devastating conflict,” he declared.
“Yet if there is one crucial difference between the era I
grew up in, and the world you inherit, it is of the relative dangers we
face. For my generation, coming of age at the height of the cold war, fear
of a nuclear winter seemed the leading existential threat on the horizon.
“Today, war continues to threaten countless men, women and
children across the globe. It is the source of untold suffering and loss.
And the majority of the UN’s work still focuses on preventing and ending
conflict. But the danger posed by war to all of humanity – and to our
planet – is at least matched by the climate crisis and global warming,” he
added.
As he has frequently stressed since he took office on 1
January, Mr. Ban said action on climate change would be one of his top
priorities as Secretary-General, noting that global warming has profound
implications for jobs, growth and poverty, affecting agriculture, the
spread of disease and migration patterns, determining the ferocity and
frequency of natural disasters, and prompting droughts, land degradation
and other changes that “are likely to become a major driver of war and
conflict.”
He added that he would discuss climate change with global
leaders at this June’s summit meeting of the G-8 major industrialized
nations. “These issues transcend borders,” he declared. “That is why
protecting the world’s environment is largely beyond the capacity of
individual countries. Only concerted and coordinated international action,
supported and sustained by individual initiative, will be sufficient.
“The natural arena for such action is the United Nations. I
am strongly committed to ensuring that the United Nations helps the
international community make the transition to sustainable practices.”
"We have seen scientific evidence
presented and then subverted by this administration. We paid for the
scientific studies. And then when the studies come forward, they're
dismissed. We're not even getting what we're paying for!
...Scientists are confident that global warming is happening. The vast
majority of experts on the issue agree that human activity is to blame.
This is a call for leadership that
unites the American people in taking a new direction for not just energy
conservation but in the development of alternative energies. Green
energies. But what happens is because scientific 'information' is brought
forward that disputes climate change, the kind of massive unity that we
need to take a new direction is slowed." U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich
House Hearing on Climate Change Research
C-SPAN.ORG January 30, 2007
Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide,
methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human
activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values...
The global increases in carbon dioxide concentration are
due primarily to fossil fuel use and land-use change, while those of
methane and nitrous oxide are primarily due to agriculture.
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now
evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean
temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean
sea level.
Mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined on
average in both hemispheres.
[L]osses from the ice sheets of Greenland and
Antarctica have very likely contributed to sea level rise over 1993 to
2003.
There is
high confidence that
the rate of observed sea level rise increased from the 19th to the 20th
century. The total 20th century rise is estimated to be 0.17 [0.12 to
0.22] m.
At continental, regional,
and ocean basin scales, numerous long-term changes in climate have been
observed. These include changes in Arctic temperatures and ice,
widespread changes in precipitation amounts, ocean salinity, wind
patterns and aspects of extreme weather including droughts, heavy
precipitation, heat waves and the intensity of tropical cyclones.
Average Arctic temperatures increased at almost twice
the global average rate in the past 100 years.
The maximum area covered by seasonally frozen ground has
decreased by about 7% in the Northern Hemisphere since 1900, with a
decrease in spring of up to 15%.
The frequency of heavy precipitation events has
increased over most land areas, consistent with warming and observed
increases of atmospheric water vapour.
Snow cover is projected to contract.
Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and
Antarctic...
It is
very likely
that hot
extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events will continue to
become more frequent.
...it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons
and hurricanes) will become more intense...
...it is
very
likely
that the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) of
the Atlantic Ocean will slow down during the 21st century.
Hurricane Katrina Mirror Image
by Richard D. Masters We Are In A Fool's Climate James Lovelock
"The climate centres around the world, which are the equivalent of the
pathology lab of a hospital, have reported the Earth's physical condition,
and the climate specialists see it as seriously ill, and soon to pass into
a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years. I have to tell you,
as members of the Earth's family and an intimate part of it, that you and
especially civilisation are in grave danger.
"Our planet has kept itself healthy and fit for life, just
like an animal does, for most of the more than three billion years of its
existence. It was ill luck that we started polluting at a time when the
sun is too hot for comfort. We have given Gaia a fever and soon her
condition will worsen to a state like a coma. She has been there before
and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years. We are responsible and
will suffer the consequences: as the century progresses, the temperature
will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees in the
tropics.
"Much of the tropical land mass will become scrub and desert,
and will no longer serve for regulation; this adds to the 40 per cent of
the Earth's surface we have depleted to feed ourselves.
"Curiously, aerosol pollution of the northern hemisphere
reduces global warming by reflecting sunlight back to space. This "global
dimming" is transient and could disappear in a few days like the smoke
that it is, leaving us fully exposed to the heat of the global greenhouse.
We are in a fool's climate, accidentally kept cool by smoke, and before
this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of
people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains
tolerable."
"There is a sense of hope
in this country that this United States Congress will rise to the occasion and
present meaningful solutions to this crisis."
Al Gore
Gore Implores Congress to Save Planet Nedra Pickler AP
March 21, 2007
"The AEI is more than just a think
tank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra.
They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of
climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral
case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash." Ben Stewart, UK Media
Officer, Greenpeace
Scientists Offered Cash to Dispute Climate Study Ian Sample The Guardian (UK)
February 2, 2007
Scientists and economists have been
offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest
oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be
published today.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an
ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration,
offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a
report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
...The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and
more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush
administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the
vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.
RELEASED!
"Though solutions
are available now that will cut global warming emissions while creating
jobs, saving consumers money, and protecting our national security,
ExxonMobil has manufactured confusion around climate change science, and
these actions have helped to forestall meaningful action that could
minimize the impacts of future climate change."
Oil Company Spent Nearly $16 Million
to Fund Skeptic Groups, Create Confusion
Union of Concerned Scientists January 3, 2006
WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 3–A new report from the Union of
Concerned Scientists offers the most comprehensive documentation to date
of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation
tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud
the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the
issue. According to the report,
ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a
network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on
global warming science. "ExxonMobil has
manufactured uncertainty
about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied
their product caused lung cancer," said Alden Meyer, the Union of
Concerned Scientists' Director of Strategy & Policy. "A modest but
effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global
warming to delay government action
just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years."
Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's
Tactics to "Manufacture Uncertainty" on Climate Change details how the oil
company, like the tobacco industry in previous decades, has
raised doubts about even the most indisputable
scientific evidence
funded an array of front organizations to create the
appearance of a broad platform for a tight-knit group of vocal climate
change contrarians who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings
attempted to portray its opposition to action as a
positive quest for "sound science" rather than business self-interest
used its
access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape
government communications on global warming
ExxonMobil-funded organizations
consist of an overlapping collection of individuals serving as staff,
board members, and scientific advisors that publish and re-publish the
works of a small group of climate change contrarians. The George C.
Marshall Institute, for instance, which has received $630,000 from
ExxonMobil, recently touted a book edited by Patrick Michaels, a long-time
climate change contrarian who is affiliated with at least 11 organizations
funded by ExxonMobil. Similarly, ExxonMobil funds a number of lesser-known
groups such as the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy and
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. Both groups promote the work of
several climate change contrarians, including Sallie Baliunas, an
astrophysicist who is affiliated with at least nine ExxonMobil-funded
groups.
Baliunas is best known for a 2003 paper alleging the climate
had not changed significantly in the past millennia that was rebutted by
13 scientists who stated she had misrepresented their work in her paper.
This renunciation did not stop ExxonMobil-funded groups from continuing to
promote the paper. Through methods such as these,
ExxonMobil has been able to
amplify and prop up work that has been discredited by reputable climate
scientists. "When one looks closely, ExxonMobil's
underhanded strategy is as clear and indisputable as the scientific
research it's meant to discredit," said Seth Shulman, an investigative
journalist who wrote the UCS report. "The paper trail shows that,
to serve its corporate interests, ExxonMobil has built a vast echo chamber
of seemingly independent groups with the express purpose of spreading
disinformation about global warming." ExxonMobil has used
the laudable goal of improving scientific understanding of global
warming—under the guise of "sound science"—for the pernicious ends of
delaying action to reduce heat-trapping emissions indefinitely. ExxonMobil
also exerted unprecedented influence over U.S. policy on global warming,
from successfully recommending the appointment of key personnel in the
Bush administration to funding climate change deniers in Congress. "As a scientist, I like to think that facts will
prevail, and they do eventually," said Dr. James McCarthy, Alexander
Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University and
former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's working
group on climate change impacts.
"It's shameful that ExxonMobil has sought to obscure the facts for so long
when the future of our planet depends on the steps we take now and in the
coming years." The burning of oil and other fossil fuels
results in additional atmospheric carbon dioxide that blankets the Earth
and traps heat. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased greatly
over the last century and global temperatures are rising as a result.
Though solutions are available now
that will cut global warming emissions while creating jobs, saving
consumers money, and protecting our national security, ExxonMobil has
manufactured confusion around climate change science, and these actions
have helped to forestall meaningful action that could minimize the impacts
of future climate change.
"ExxonMobil needs to be held accountable for its cynical
disinformation campaign on global warming," said Meyer. "Consumers,
shareholders and Congress should let the company know loud and clear that
its behavior on this issue is unacceptable and must change."
CAN BRANSON PUT
HUMPTY-DUMPTY BACK TOGETHER AGAIN?
Virgin's Branson Offers $25 Million Global Warming Prize for CO2
Scrubbing Reuters
February 9, 2007
The winner will have to come up
with a way of removing one billion metric tons of carbon gases a year
from the atmosphere for 10 years -- with $5 million of the prize being
paid at the start and the remaining $20 million at the end.
Atmosphere of Pressure Political Interference in Federal
Climate Science A Report of the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Government
Accountability Project
FULL REPORT
February 2007
It is crucial that the best available science on
climate change be disseminated to the public, through government websites,
reports, and press releases. In recent years, however, this science has
been increasingly tailored to reflect political goals rather than
scientific fact.
The Oversight Committee held a
hearing on January 30 regarding political interference in the work of
government climate change scientists. In preparation for the hearing,
Chairman Waxman and Ranking Member Davis requested documents from the
Council on Environmental Quality related to allegations that officials
edited scientific reports and took other actions to minimize the
significance of climate change.
“I believe the overarching problem
is that the administration—acting primarily through key positions in the
Executive Office of the President, and to some extent the State
Department, and aligning itself with some of its key allies—does not want
and has acted to impede forthright communication of the state of climate
science and its implications for society.”
On Issues of Concern About the Governance and Direction of the Climate
Change Science ProgramRick Plitz June 1, 2005
One area where we definitely need
the climate to change is the national government's attitude toward global
warming. It would not act, so California did.
California has takenthe leadership in moving
the entire country beyond debate and denial... to action.
As California goes, so goes the rest of the
nation.
I ask you to appropriate the funds to implement this global
warming legislation, so that we can become part of the world market that
is already trading credits for the reduction of greenhouse gases.
I also ask you to work with me on another environmental
first. I propose that California be
the first in the world to develop a low carbon fuel standard that leads us
away from fossil fuels. And let us
use the freedom and flexibility of the market to accomplish it. Let us
blaze the way, for the U.S., for China and for the rest of the world.
Our cars have been running on dirty
fuel for too long. Our country has been dependent on foreign oil for too
long.
I ask you to set in motion the means to free ourselves from
oil and from OPEC.
I ask you to encourage the free market to overthrow the old
order. Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger to the California Legislature KGET
January 9, 2007
KILLED BY FOSSIL
FUEL BURNING
PLEASE HELP US!
“If the Bush
Administration proceeds to list the polar bear as an endangered species,
it may signal the beginning of the end of its policy of global warming
denial. After giving the cold shoulder to conservation, Kyoto, and better
fuel economy standards, they seem to be warming up to protecting an icon
of American wildlife. The threat of global warming goes well beyond a
single species, and the new Democratic majority will certainly be taking a
long, hard look at global warming and better protecting our national
environmental treasures like the polar bear.”
Representative Edward Markey, Massachusetts
December 28, 2006
NEW PROBE ONLY SCRATCHES THE SURFACE OF ILLEGAL GOVERNMENT COMPLICITY IN
THE ONGOING
WAR ON RENEWABLE ENERGY
Interior Officials' Ties to Big Oil Probed CBS News
December 30, 2006
Federal Investigators Probe Interior
Department
Officials' Ties to Oil, Gas Contracts
Markey said Saturday in a statement
given to The Associated Press that it was "beyond the pale" that several
Denver-based officials in Interior's Minerals Management Service may have
illegally benefited by acting as paid consultants to some of the oil and
gas companies.
"The allegation
that any senior official who is responsible for collecting royalties from
companies that drill on public lands is also taking money from those
companies as a consultant is beyond a conflict of interest, if true, it is
a crime. The Interior Department is riddled with people who got their jobs
because they were close to the oil industry and could be expected to tilt
every decision accordingly. Royalties owed to the government from
production on public lands have become the currency of cozy cooperation
between industry and its special friends in the Interior Department." Representative Edward
Markey, Massachusetts
"...increases in global temperatures may have a beneficial effect on how
we
live our lives." --
Senator James Inhofe
JUNK SCIENCE THROWBACK INHOFF TO CONVENE INVESTIGATION OF
"CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE MEDIA"
Don't miss this bizarre, disgraceful and historic
anti-science witch-hunt - part of the Republicans'
War Against Renewable Energy
9:30 A.M. WEDNESDAY
DEC 6, 2006
Committee Hearing to be Televised on Internet
Audio Only
Real Player required
Witnesses who are actively engaged in belittling
Global Warming:
Dr. R.M. Carter, Marine Geophysical
Laboratory, James Cook University
AUSTRALIA
"For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a
large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the
problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created
political fiasco." -- Bob Carter
The Lavoisier Group is a
global warming skeptic organisation, based in Australia. It argues
that the evidence for global warming is based on inexact science and
that any policy responses, such as signing the Kyoto Protocol, would be
too expensive for Australia's industry. The group is closely associated
with the Australian mining industry. --
Sourcewatch
The Lavoisier Group distributes the work of geologist Bob Carter, Ian
Castles, William Kininmonth, Ian Plimer and a few other Australian
sceptics.
--
The Global Warming Skeptics The Age
November 27, 2004
Dr. David Deming, University of Oklahoma, College of
Earth and Energy
"Sen. James Inhofe is not only correct in his view on global warming,
but courageous to insist on truth, objectivity, and sound science. Truth
in science doesn't depend on human consensus or political correctness.
The fact that the majority of journalists and pundits bray like sheep is
meaningless."
-- David Deming
Norman TranscriptOctober
5, 2006
Deming is a member of the Environmental Task Force of the National
Center for Policy Analysis. Among the largest funding corporations of
the NCPA are the Koch Family Foundation (Bill Koch is a strong opponent
of Cape Wind);
ExxonMobil, leader of the global disinformation campaign
on global warming; and El Paso Energy.
Dan Gainor, The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow
Director, Business & Media Institute (Funded in part by
ExxonMobil.)
On the July 10 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network's (CBN)
The 700 Club, Media Research Center [now Business and Media Center]
president L. Brent Bozell III misleadingly suggested that there is no
scientific consensus on the existence of global warming. Asserting that
the media "can't decide" on the science because "[o]ne moment they're
declaring ... there's global warming. The next moment ... there's global
cooling," Bozell revived a favorite argument of some global warming
skeptics that, in the 1970s, scientists were warning that the earth was
cooling at an alarming rate. In fact, the magnitude of the consensus
among scientists that global warming exists and that human activity is a
contributing factor dwarfs the pool of scientists 30 years earlier who
warned that the earth was cooling.
Hot Air About Global Warming Media Matters
July 12, 2006
Other witnesses:
Dr. Daniel Schrag , Laboratory for Geochemical
Oceanography
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University
"The big challenge is what happens if sea level predictions are wrong,
and sea level rise is worse than we think. Then evacuating huge
areas—like all of south Florida—becomes essential, and how a society
deals with that kind of relocation is pretty complicated. The problem
with all of these types of dangers is that we don't know when this will
occur or even whether we have crossed a critical threshold already. We
may have already lost control of the system, but I hope not, because
reducing our own carbon emissions is something that is very feasible."
-- Daniel Schrag American Assoc. for
the Advancement of Science Oct 18, 2006
Dr. Naomi Oreskes, Director, Science Studies Program
University of California, San Diego
Professor, Department of History & Program in Science Studies
"Many people have the impression that there is significant scientific
disagreement about global climate change. It's time to lay that
misapprehension to rest. There is a scientific consensus on the fact
that Earth's climate is heating up and human activities are part of the
reason. We need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of
global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to
address it."
-- Naomi Oreskes Washington Post
December 26, 2004
OKLAHOMA SENATOR
USES HIS OFFICE TO REPRESENT
EXXONMOBIL &
BP.
HE HAS ACCEPTED NEARLY A MILLION
DOLLARS FROM OIL COMPANIES!
James Inhofe
CHAIRMAN
Environment
&
Public Works
Armed Services
Mr. Rex W. Tillerson
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
ExxonMobil Corporation
5959 Las Colinas Boulevard
Irving, TX 75039
Dear Mr. Tillerson:
Allow us to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your first
year as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the ExxonMobil
Corporation. You will become the public face of an undisputed leader in
the world energy industry, and a company that plays a vital role in our
national economy. As that public face, you will have the ability and
responsibility to lead ExxonMobil toward its rightful place as a good
corporate and global citizen.
We are writing to appeal to your sense of stewardship of that corporate
citizenship as U.S. Senators concerned about the credibility of the United
States in the international community, and as Americans concerned that one
of our most prestigious corporations has done much in the past to
adversely affect that credibility.
We are convinced that ExxonMobil’s longstanding support of a small cadre
of global climate change skeptics, and those skeptics access to and
influence on government policymakers, have made it increasingly difficult
for the United States to demonstrate the moral clarity it needs across all
facets of its diplomacy.
Obviously, other factors complicate our foreign policy. However, we are
persuaded that the climate change
denial strategy carried out by and for ExxonMobil has helped foster the
perception that the United States is insensitive to a matter of great
urgency for all of mankind, and has thus damaged the stature of our nation
internationally. It is our hope that under your leadership,
ExxonMobil would end its dangerous support of the “deniers.” Likewise, we
look to you to guide ExxonMobil to capitalize on its significant resources
and prominent industry position to assist this country in taking its
appropriate leadership role in promoting the technological innovation
necessary to address climate change and in fashioning a truly global
solution to what is undeniably a global problem.
While ExxonMobil’s activity in this area is well-documented, we are
somewhat encouraged by developments that have come to light during your
brief tenure. We fervently hope that reports that ExxonMobil intends to
end its funding of the climate change denial campaign of the Competitive
Enterprise Institute (CEI) are true. Similarly, we have seen press reports
that your British subsidiary has told the Royal Society, Great Britain’s
foremost scientific academy, that ExxonMobil will stop funding other
organizations with similar purposes. However,
a casual review of available
literature, as performed by personnel for the Royal Society reveals that
ExxonMobil is or has been the primary funding source for the “skepticism”
of not only CEI,
but for dozens of other overlapping and interlocking front groups sharing
the same obfuscation agenda. For this reason, we share the goal of
the Royal Society that ExxonMobil “come clean” about its past denial
activities, and that the corporation take positive steps by a date certain
toward a new and more responsible corporate citizenship.
ExxonMobil is not alone in jeopardizing the credibility and stature of
the United States. Large
corporations in related industries have joined ExxonMobil to provide
significant and consistent financial support of this pseudo-scientific,
non-peer reviewed echo chamber. The goal has not been to prevail in the
scientific debate, but to obscure it. This climate change denial
confederacy has exerted an influence out of all proportion to its size or
relative scientific credibility. Through relentless pressure on the media
to present the issue “objectively,” and by challenging the consensus on
climate change science by misstating both the nature of what “consensus”
means and what this particular consensus is, ExxonMobil and its allies
have confused the public and given cover to a few senior elected and
appointed government officials whose positions and opinions enable them to
damage U.S. credibility abroad.
Climate change denial has been so effective because the “denial
community” has mischaracterized the necessarily guarded language of
serious scientific dialogue as vagueness and uncertainty.
Mainstream media outlets, attacked
for being biased, help lend credence to skeptics’ views, regardless of
their scientific integrity, by giving them relatively equal standing with
legitimate scientists. ExxonMobil is responsible for much of this bogus
scientific “debate” and the demand for what the deniers cynically refer to
as “sound science.”
A study to be released in
November by an American scientific group will expose ExxonMobil as the
primary funder
of no fewer than 29 climate change denial front groups in 2004 alone.
Besides a shared goal, these groups often featured common staffs and board
members. The study will estimate that ExxonMobil has spent more than $19
million since the late 1990s on a strategy of “information laundering,” or
enabling a small number of professional skeptics working through
scientific-sounding organizations to funnel their viewpoints through
non-peer-reviewed websites such as Tech Central Station. The Internet has
provided ExxonMobil the means to wreak its havoc on U.S. credibility,
while avoiding the rigors of refereed journals. While deniers can easily
post something calling into question the scientific consensus on climate
change, not a single refereed article in more than a decade has sought to
refute it.
Indeed, while the group of outliers funded by ExxonMobil has had some
success in the court of public opinion, it has failed miserably in
confusing, much less convincing, the legitimate scientific community.
Rather, what has emerged and continues to withstand the carefully crafted
denial strategy is an insurmountable scientific consensus on both the
problem and causation of climate change.
Instead of the narrow and
inward-looking universe of the deniers, the legitimate scientific
community has developed its views on climate change through rigorous
peer-reviewed research and writing across all climate-related disciplines
and in virtually every country on the globe.
Where most scientists
dispassionate review of the facts has moved past acknowledgement to
mitigation strategies, ExxonMobil’s contribution the overall
politicization of science has merely bolstered the views of U.S.
government officials satisfied to do nothing. Rather than investing in the
development of technologies that might see us through this crisis—and
which may rival the computer as a wellspring of near-term economic growth
around the world—ExxonMobil and its partners in denial have manufactured
controversy, sown doubt, and impeded progress with strategies all-too
reminiscent of those used by the tobacco industry for so many years. The
net result of this unfortunate campaign has been a diminution of this
nation’s ability to act internationally, and not only in environmental
matters.
In light of the adverse impacts
still resulting from your corporations activities, we must request that
ExxonMobil end any further financial assistance or other support to groups
or individuals whose public advocacy has contributed to the small, but
unfortunately effective, climate change denial myth. Further, we
believe ExxonMobil should take additional steps to improve the public
debate, and consequently the reputation of the United States. We would
recommend that ExxonMobil publicly acknowledge both the reality of climate
change and the role of humans in causing or exacerbating it. Second,
ExxonMobil should repudiate its climate change denial campaign and make
public its funding history. Finally, we believe that there would be a
benefit to the United States if one of the world’s largest carbon emitters
headquartered here devoted at least some of the money it has invested in
climate change denial pseudo-science to global remediation efforts. We
believe this would be especially important in the developing world, where
the disastrous effects of global climate change are likely to have their
most immediate and calamitous impacts.
Each of us is committed to seeing the United States officially reengage
and demonstrate leadership on the issue of global climate change. We are
ready to work with you and any other past corporate sponsor of the denial
campaign on proactive strategies to promote energy efficiency, to expand
the use of clean, alternative, and renewable fuels, to accelerate
innovation to responsibly extend the useful life of our fossil fuel
reserves, and to foster greater understanding of the necessity of action
on a truly global scale before it is too late.
Two federal
agencies are investigating whether the Bush administration tried to block
government scientists from speaking freely about global warming and censor
their research, a senator said Wednesday.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, (D-N.J.), said he was informed that the inspector
generals for the Commerce
Department and NASA had begun "coordinated, sweeping
investigations of the Bush administration's censorship and suppression" of
federal research into global warming.
OPEC Says British Climate Change Report "Unfounded" Tanya Mosolova Reuters
October 31, 2006
OPEC is made up of Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq,
Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and
Venezuela.
"We now have the largest ozone hole on record,"
said Craig Long of NCEP. As the sun rises higher in the sky during
October and November, this unusually large and persistent area may allow
much more ultraviolet light than usual to reach Earth's surface in the
southern latitudes.
Dire Climate Warning
by Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, Builds
Chasm Between Britain, U.S.
Using the results
from formal economic models, the Review estimates that if we don’t act,
the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing
at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of
risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could
rise to 20% of GDP or more.
In contrast, the costs of action – reducing greenhouse gas
emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change – can be limited to
around 1% of global GDP each year.
The investment that takes place in the next 10-20 years
will have a profound effect on the climate in the second half of this
century and in the next. Our actions now and over the coming decades could
create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, on a
scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic
depression of the first half of the 20th century. And it will be difficult
or impossible to reverse these changes. -- from
the
Executive summary (short)
"This disaster is
not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but
in our lifetime. We can't wait the five years it took to negotiate Kyoto
- we simply don't have the time." U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair
The Dy that Changed the Climate Colin Brown, Rupert Cornwell Independent
(UK) Oct 31, 2006
Antarctic Ice Collapse Tied to Greenhouse Gases
Reuters October 16, 2006 "This is the first time
that anyone has been able to demonstrate a physical process directly
linking the break-up of the Larsen Ice Shelf to human activity," said
Gareth Marshall, lead author of the study at the British Antarctic Survey.
Alaska Storm Hits Antarctic Iceberg The Age
(AU) Oct 3, 2006 The spectacular break-up of the Antarctic Peninsula's Larsen B
ice shelf,
which featured in Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth, has
unleashed onshore glaciers behind it, which are surging down to the sea
eight times faster than before.
"Hasta
la vista, Opec!"
CALIFORNIA
SHOWDOWN California Sues GM, Ford,
Chrysler, Toyota, Nissan and Honda Over Global Warming
CALIFORNIA SETS THE STAGE FOR DETROIT'S HI-TECH FUEL CELL REVIVAL
The End of the Road for the Gasoline Car? Simon Hooper
CNN
September 22, 2006
So has our love affair with the automobile reached the end of the road?
Hilton Holloway, Associate Editor of Autocar, the world's oldest motoring
magazine, doesn't think so. He says the motor car has plenty left of gas
left in the tank, but predicts that tank is more likely to contain
hydrogen than gasoline.
THESE CARS ARE A"PUBLIC NUISANCE!"
reduced snowpack
coastal & beach erosion
increased ozone pollution
Delta seawater intrusion
impacts on wildlife, fish
endangered species
monitoring expense
Attorney General Bill Lockyer today filed a lawsuit against leading U.S.
and Japanese auto manufacturers, alleging their vehicles’ emissions have
contributed significantly to global warming, harmed the resources,
infrastructure and environmental health of California, and cost the state
millions of dollars to address current and future effects.
“Global warming is causing significant harm to
California’s environment, economy, agriculture and public health. The
impacts are already costing millions of dollars and the price tag is
increasing,” said Lockyer. “Vehicle emissions are the single most rapidly
growing source of the carbon emissions contributing to global warming, yet
the federal government and automakers have refused to act. It is time to
hold these companies responsible for their contribution to this crisis.”
Filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of California, the complaint names as defendants: Chrysler Motors
Corporation, General Motors Corporation, Ford Motor Company, Toyota Motor
North America, Inc., Honda North America, and Nissan North America. The
lawsuit is the first of its kind to seek to hold manufacturers liable for
the damages caused by greenhouse gases that their products emit. Lockyer
filed the lawsuit on behalf of the People of the State of California.
The complaint alleges that under federal and state
common law the automakers have created a public nuisance by producing
“millions of vehicles that collectively emit massive quantities of carbon
dioxide,” a greenhouse gas that traps atmospheric heat and causes global
warming. Under the law, a “public nuisance” is an unreasonable
interference with a public right, or an action that interferes with or
causes harm to life, health or property. The complaint asks the court to
hold the defendants liable for damages, including future harm, caused by
their ongoing, substantial contribution to the public nuisance of global
warming.
As stated in the complaint, the automakers produce
vehicles that emit a combined 289 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in
the United States each year. Those emissions, the complaint alleges,
currently account for nearly 20 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions in
the United States and more than 30 percent in California. The defendants
rank “among the world’s largest contributors to global warming and the
adverse impacts on California,” according to the complaint. “Global warming has already injured California, it
environment, its economy, and the health and well-being of its citizens,”
the complaint alleges. “California is responding to the ongoing impacts
and the inevitable additional future impacts of global warming. The State
is spending millions of dollars on planning, monitoring, and
infrastructure changes to address a large spectrum of current and
anticipated impacts, including reduced snow pack, coastal and beach
erosion, increased ozone pollution, sea water intrusion into Delta
drinking supplies, response to impacts on wildlife, including endangered
species and fish, wildfire risks, and the long-term need to monitor
on-going and inevitable impacts. California has already begun to address
the decline in the snow pack and earlier melting of the snow pack in order
to avert water shortages and flooding in the future.” Dealing with global
warming’s harmful effects, the complaint adds, “will almost certainly cost
millions more.”
Today’s filing comes as Lockyer fights the auto
industry’s attempt to invalidate California’s landmark global warming
regulations curbing tailpipe emissions. In their federal-court lawsuit,
the automakers claim the regulations, adopted in 2005 through legislation
sponsored by Assembly Member Fran Pavley, are pre-empted by federal law.
Lockyer is defending the rules against the industry’s legal challenge.
Lockyer noted the Bush Administration’s inaction on
global warming has forced California and other states to take action on
their own. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently reviewing a lawsuit filed
by Lockyer, 11 other Attorneys General, two cities and major environmental
groups challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA)
refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Numerous parties have
submitted amicus briefs supporting the states, including climate
scientists, three former EPA Administrators, former Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright, and environmental and religious groups.
In addition, Lockyer, along with nine other state
Attorneys General, the District of Columbia and the City of New York,
filed a lawsuit earlier this year challenging the Bush Administration’s
new fuel economy standards for SUVs and light trucks. That complaint
alleges the rules fail to address the effects on the environment and
global warming.
California is particularly vulnerable to global
warming impacts. According to a report recently submitted by the Climate
Action Team to Governor Schwarzenegger and the California Legislature, the
consequences of climate change in California will be “severe.”
“We are seeing the harmful impacts of global warming
today, and if we continue with ‘business as usual,’ we can expect to see
more and larger impacts in the future,” said Lockyer. “As a coastal state,
an agricultural state, and a state that relies on its Sierra snow pack,
California has an enormous stake in acting now to combat global warming.”
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, ex rel. BILL
LOCKYER, ATTORNEY GENERAL Plaintiff,
v.
GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, a Delaware Corporation, TOYOTA MOTOR NORTH
AMERICA, INC., a California Corporation, FORD MOTOR COMPANY, a Delaware
Corporation, HONDA NORTH AMERICA, INC., a California Corporation, CHRYSLER
MOTORS CORPORATION, a Delaware Corporation, NISSAN NORTH AMERICA, INC., a
California Corporation Defendants.
COMPLAINT
Massive Surge in Disappearance
of Arctic Sea Ice Sparks Global Warning Michael McCarthy and David Usorne
The Independent
Sept 15, 2006
Yesterday, Jim Hansen, the leading climatologist and director of the
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York, issued a now-or-never
warning to governments around the world, including his own, telling them
they must take radical action to avert a planetary environmental
catastrophe.
By improving the
efficiency with which we use fossil fuels and increasing our use of clean,
renewable energy, the United States can reduce its global warming emissions
in the near future, while putting America on a path toward dramatically
lower global warming emissions in the decades to come.
Scientists tell us that if we continue on a “business-as-usual” path,
releasing more global warming pollution every year, the consequences for
human beings and the planet will be dire. Scientists don’t yet have the
tools to tell us with certainty which areas of the planet will be most
dramatically affected, but the overall picture is clear: unrestrained global
warming will severely disrupt the environment and the ecosystems on which
all life depends. But there is good news in the climate science, too. The
evidence suggests that if we begin to reduce emissions of global warming
pollutants immediately and significantly, we still have time to avoid the
most catastrophic impacts of global warming.
The United States has an indispensable role to play in
reducing global warming emissions. The United States is by far the world’s
largest consumer of fossil fuels and emitter of global warming pollution,
and thus must make a firm commitment to curbing emissions—and carry through
on that commitment—in order for the world to achieve the emission reductions
needed to safeguard the climate. The road will not be easy. Climate
scientists estimate that the world will need to reduce emissions of global
warming pollution by more than half below current levels by mid-century if
we want to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. But the
technology exists to begin making that transition now.
BUSH LEARNS ABOUT HURRICANES FROM COAL-FUNDED
SCIENTIST Bush Briefed on Global Warming's Impact on Storms Reuters
July 31, 2006 A scientist at the [National
Hurricane Center], Christopher Landsea, told Bush there was "not a consensus"
linking
[Earth's warming to hurricanes.]
We are here on the day before the beginning of the
hurricane season to denounce the Bush Administration’s cover-up of the
growing scientific link between monstrous hurricanes and human-induced
global warming.
Despite a flurry of peer-reviewed scientific studies linking
planetary warming to storms like Katrina, leaders at the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Hurricane Center (a
subset of NOAA) continue to claim – with no supporting data -- that the
recent hurricane devastation is part of a “natural cycle” having nothing
to do with a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. We condemn
these responses as an abdication of government responsibility when
millions of Americans are increasingly vulnerable to violent storms in a
warmer world.
After a record four major hurricanes hit Florida in 2004, the
2005 hurricane season was even more devastating. Of the six most powerful
hurricanes ever to hit the United States in the past 150 years, three
occurred within 52 days in 2005. These were Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. The
damage from Katrina alone was over 1,500 dead, two million Americans
displaced, and at least $200 billion in damages.
Meanwhile, just since August 2005, no fewer than four major
scientific studies – one conducted by NOAA itself – have shown that warmer
sea-surface temperatures created by atmospheric warming are increasing the
frequency, power, and lifespan of major, Category 4 and 5 hurricanes. Yet
there is no mention of these studies at the National Hurricane Center web
site despite the agency’s official mission “to save lives, mitigate
property loss, and improve economic efficiency by issuing the best
watches, warnings, forecasts and analyses of hazardous tropical weather,
and by increasing understanding of these hazards.” And NHC director Max
Mayfield denied any substantive connection between global warming and
hurricanes before a US Senate panel last fall.
Meanwhile at NOAA, The Washington Post and other media have
documented the ongoing campaign to cover up global warming data. Under the
directorship of Bush’s friend and political appointee, Vice Admiral Conrad
C. Lautenbacher Jr., NOAA climate scientists are being intimidated from
talking to the press and their papers are being withheld from publication.
These actions at NOAA and the NHC are part of an obvious
political campaign orchestrated by the White House to avoid the serious
cuts in fossil fuel use scientists say are needed to fight global warming.
But by ignoring the science and denying the warming on behalf of Exxon
Mobil and other major oil corporations, the Bush Administration is putting
millions more Americans this year and for years to come at great risk for
experiencing the kind of suffering and loss seen throughout the Gulf Coast
in 2005.
The cover-up must stop now!
Endorsed by (list in formation):
Rev. Laura J. Collins, National Capital Presbytery Environmental Team
Rev. Charles Morris, Director, Michigan Interfaith Power and Light
Alliance for Affordable Energy, New Orleans, La.
Mike Tidwell, U.S. Climate Emergency Council
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Global Justice Ecology Project
Global Warming Solution.org
GRACE Policy Institute
Green House Network
Greenwood Earth Alliance
Labor Community Strategy Center
Organic Consumers Association
Climate Crisis Coalition
Climate Solutions
The Enviro Show
Global Exchange
Pax Christi, USA
Shalom Center
Jonah Blaustein
Rabbi David Shneyer
Peter Stegehuis
Just Transition Alliance
The
Tempest
Joel Achenbach Washington Post
May 28, 2006
Scientists are haunted by the realization that if CFCs had been made with
a slightly different type of chemistry, they'd have destroyed much of the
ozone layer over the entire planet.
Hansen thinks we have less than 10 years to make drastic cuts
in greenhouse emissions, lest we reach a "tipping point" at which the
climate will be out of our control. Hansen may be a step ahead of the
consensus -- but that doesn't mean he's wrong. In the brutally hot summer
of 1988, Hansen testified before Congress that the signal of global
warming could already be detected amid the noise of natural climate
variation. Many of his colleagues scoffed. They thought he'd gotten ahead
of the hard data. Judy Curry, a Georgia Tech climate scientist, says: "I
thought he was playing politics. But, damn it, he was right."
Curry, who believes the skeptics have mounted a "brilliant
disinformation campaign," thinks climate change is being held to a
different standard than other societal threats. The skeptics want every
uncertainty nailed down before any action is taken.
"Why is that standard being applied to greenhouse warming and
not to other risks, like terrorism or military risks or avian flu?" she
asks.
more
A staggering 182
million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone could die of disease directly
attributable to climate change by the end of the century. Many millions
more throughout the world face death and devastation due to
climate-induced floods, famine, drought and conflict.
The Earth is likely to experience a temperature rise of at least 3C,
the UK government's chief scientist says. Professor Sir David King warned
this would happen because world governments were failing to agree on
cutting emissions of greenhouse gases.
more
Avoiding
Dangerous Climate Change
406 pages 23.5 MB PDF Free
download
Cambridge University Press 2006
"This book... will provide an invaluable resource for all people wishing
to enhance global understanding of the science of climate change and the
need for humanity to act to tackle the problem”. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair
The Western Alaskan
village of Shishmaref may soon be washed away.
All six hundred residents have now decided to move. The sea level is
rising, and despite efforts to secure them, local houses are floating off.
Scientists are warning us that this is just a preview of what is coming.
Global Warming in AlaskaAngela Hutti
CBS 11 (AK)
March 31, 2006
Impact of Climate Warming on Polar Ice Confirmed National Aeronautics and Space Administration
March 8, 2006
In the most comprehensive survey ever undertaken of the massive ice sheets
covering both Greenland and Antarctica, NASA scientists confirm climate
warming is changing how much water remains locked in Earth's largest
storehouse of ice and snow.
...The survey shows that there was a net loss of ice from the
combined polar ice sheets between 1992 and 2002 and a corresponding rise
in sea level. The survey documents for the first time extensive thinning
of the West Antarctic ice shelves and an increase in snowfall in the
interior of Greenland, as well as thinning at the edges. All are signs of
a warming climate predicted by computer models.
"There are no
unilateral solutions to climate change. I have urged the Bush
administration and my colleagues in Congress, to return to a leadership
role on the issue of climate change. I have advocated the United States
must be open to multilateral forums that attempt to achieve global
solutions to the problem of greenhouse gases. Our scientific understanding
of climate change has advanced significantly. We have better computer
models, more measurements, and more evidence, from the shrinking polar
caps to expanding tropical disease zones for plants and humans. That the
problem is real and is caused by manmade emissions of greenhouse gases,
including carbon dioxide from fossil fuels." U.S. Senator Richard Lugar
READ ENTIRE SPEECH Speech to the Brookings Institution
March 13, 2006
CAN GOVERNMENT INSURE AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING?
NO. THE CLAIMS WILL EXHAUST ALL
GOVERNMENT FUNDS, RESULTING IN MONETARY DILUTION AND A SEVERE
ECONOMIC DOWNTURN. GOVERNMENT PRIMARILY EXISTS TO DEFEND AGAINST OUR
ENEMIES. THEREFORE SENSIBLE PEOPLE MUST MOVE INLAND NOW TO AVOID
IMPENDING HARDSHIP. -
RDM
Weather Expert Warns of Costly Hurricanes Paige St. John News-Press.com (Tallahassee
FL) March 14, 2004
The House Insurance Committee this week takes its
first crack at a 92-page bill that allows automatic rate hikes up to
25 percent, removes the public subsidy for second-home owners on the
beach, and requires storm shutters in the Panhandle.
This report is the first comprehensive examination of how
100 of the world’s largest corporations are positioning themselves to
compete in a carbon-constrained world. With the launch of the Kyoto
Protocol1 in 2005, managing greenhouse gas emissions is now a routine part
of doing business in key global trading markets. As the United
States moves to join the international effort to combat
global warming, climate governance practices will assume an increasingly
central role in corporate and investment planning. Eventually, nothing
short of an energy and technology revolution will be needed to stem rising
greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. Faced with record warmth,
unprecedented hurricane activity and rapid shrinking of polar ice caps,
industry opposition to confronting climate change is diminishing. Skeptics
no longer question whether human activity is warming the globe, but how
fast. Companies at the vanguard no longer question how much it will cost
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but how much money they can make doing
it. Financial markets are starting to reward companies that are moving
ahead on climate change, while those lagging behind are being assigned
more risk. Ultimately, effective corporate responses to climate change
must be built on well-functioning environmental management systems and
properly focused governance practices. Shareholders and financial analysts
will increasingly assign value to companies that prepare for and
capitalize on business opportunities posed by climate change—whether from
greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations, direct physical impacts or changes in
corporate reputation. This report is designed to be used as a benchmarking
tool by institutional investors and corporations that are ready to seize
on these trends. It employs a “Climate Change Governance Checklist” to
evaluate how 76 U.S. companies and 24 non-U.S. companies are addressing
climate change through board oversight, management execution, public
disclosure, emissions accounting and strategic planning. Information was
gathered and synthesized over the past nine months from securities
filings, company reports, company websites and third-party questionnaires.
Each of the 100 companies in this report was given an opportunity to
comment on the draft profiles and 84 companies offered comments.
Ceresis a national network of investment funds, environmental
organizations and other public interest groups working to advance
environmental stewardship on the part of businesses. Ceres is renowned for
its unique ability to bring diverse groups together to find positive
solutions for complex environmental and social challenges. For example, in
May 2005 at the United Nations, Ceres brought together representatives of
U.S. and international pension funds representing $5 trillion in capital
to address the profound investment risks and emerging business
opportunities driven by climate change.
"Once a sheet
starts to disintegrate, it can reach a tipping point beyond which break-up
is explosively rapid. ...I think sea-level rise is going to be the
big issue soon, more even than warming itself. It's hard to say what the
world will be like if this happens. It would be another planet."
Greenland Ice Cap Breaking Up at Twice the Rate it Was Five Years Ago,
Says Scientist Bush Tried to Gag Jim Hansen
The Independent (UK) February
17, 2006
"On climate, the
public has been misinformed and not informed. The foundation of a
democracy is an informed public, which obviously means an honestly
informed public. That's the big issue here." James E. Hansen
A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA Andrew C. Revkin
The New York Times
February 8, 2006
In the most comprehensive survey ever undertaken of the massive ice sheets
covering both Greenland and Antarctica, NASA scientists confirm climate
warming is changing how much water remains locked in Earth's largest
storehouse of ice and snow.
...The survey shows that there was a net loss of ice from the
combined polar ice sheets between 1992 and 2002 and a corresponding rise
in sea level. The survey documents for the first time extensive thinning
of the West Antarctic ice shelves and an increase in snowfall in the
interior of Greenland, as well as thinning at the edges. All are signs of
a warming climate predicted by computer models.
"On climate, the
public has been misinformed and not informed. The foundation of a
democracy is an informed public, which obviously means an honestly
informed public. That's the big issue here." James E. Hansen
A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA Andrew C. Revkin
The New York Times
February 8, 2006
"The NASA censorship scandal was
originally about partisan figures compromising the science, and it still
is, but now it’s also about something much deeper and much more
troubling."
NASA Censor Resigns Nick Anthis Scientific Activist
February 8, 2006
For a president that paints himself as a champion of national
security, the NASA incident is a major blow to Bush’s credibility.
"...communication with the public has become seriously
hampered during the past few years for employees of government agencies such
as NASA, NOAA and EPA. ...Yesterday I asked people in the NASA Goddard Earth
Science News Team if they were willing to corroborate this. I was told that
I could 'not expect to get cooperation' on this, that 'we have already been
spoken to about this' and 'we could be fired'. Instructions, oral
instructions, regarding required White House approval of science results on
climate change were delivered from the NASA Associate Administrator for
Public Affairs to the Goddard Public Information Officer for Earth Sciences
and on down to the lower levels of public information officers."
SO
YOU THOUGHT THE CHALLENGER WAS BAD?
JUST WAIT UNTIL KATRINA 2, 3, 4, 5 AND 6...
"...communication with the public
has become seriously hampered during the past few years for employees of
government agencies such as NASA, NOAA and EPA. Although one can try to
ignore attempts to influence communication, overall the effects have been
substantial."
Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference James E. Hansen October
26, 2004
The fight between Dr. Hansen and administration officials echoes other
recent disputes. At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely
took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the
interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then
only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.
Dangerous
Anthropogenic Interference A Discussion of Humanity’s Faustian Climate Bargain and the
Payments Coming Due James E. Hansen University of Iowa
October 26, 2004
I have been told by a high
government official that I should not talk about “dangerous
anthropogenic interference” with climate, because we do not know how
much humans are changing the Earth’s climate or how much change is
“dangerous”. Actually, we know quite a lot. Natural regional climate
fluctuations remain larger today than human-made effects such as
global warming. But data show that we are at a point where human
effects are competing with nature and the balance is shifting.
Ominously, the data show that human effects have been minimized by
a Faustian bargain: global warming effects have been mitigated by
air pollutants that reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the
Earth’s surface. This Faustian bargain has a time limit, and the
payment is now coming due.
Actions that would alleviate human distortions of nature are
not only feasible but make sense for other reasons, including our
economic well-being and national security. However, our present plan
in the United States is to wait another decade before re-examining
the climate change matter. Delay of another decade, I argue, is a
colossal risk.
more
"As the evidence gathers, you would hope they would be flexible," Hansen
said in the slow, measured tones he has retained from his years growing up
on an Iowa farm. "We have to deal with this. You can't ignore it."
ALSO SEE
CLIMATE CHANGE
"We need to fashion
policies with proper incentives to reduce the amount of carbon we are putting in
the atmosphere. There are all kinds of things we can do right now, and we ought
to be taking those steps."
William Ruckelshaus, EPA Head, 1970 to
1973
6 EPA Ex-Chiefs Urge Bush to Limit Carbon Emissions Michael Janofsky New York Times
January 19, 2005
UNITED KINGDOM
Peter Hain
"We are facing two potentially catastrophic scenarios: a threat to our
security of energy supply, and, even more dangerous, global warming which
has seen the 10 warmest years on record since 1990 and threatens the very
future of our planet.
"Our failure to make the tough decisions at national levels
on alternative sources of energy in the past has left us now facing what
many see as the inevitability of an increase in nuclear capacity in Great
Britain just to keep the lights on.
"In the future, faced with the vast liabilities and dangerous
waste from nuclear, our children and grandchildren will ask how we ever
got ourselves into that position.
"Today we have an opportunity not to compound our failings by
again failing to take the difficult decisions to invest in renewable and
clean sources of energy."
Peter Hain, Secretary, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland 'Must Point the Way on Renewable Energy'
UTV (UK) January
31, 2005
How Government Makes Nuclear Power Competitive
U.S. Code
December 27, 2005
In the event of a nuclear incident involving damages in excess of the
amount of aggregate public liability under paragraph (1), the Congress
will thoroughly review the particular incident in accordance with the
procedures set forth in subsection (i) of this section and will in
accordance with such procedures, take whatever action is determined to be
necessary (including approval of appropriate compensation plans and
appropriation of funds) to provide full and prompt compensation to the
public for all public liability claims resulting from a disaster of such
magnitude.
CLIMATE
CATASTROPHE?
"High in
the Arctic, in our interior and along our coasts, the country we know
is being transformed. Winters are growing milder, summers hotter and
more severe, there is plant life where before there was none; there is
water where before there was ice. Our permafrost is thawing -- and
releasing methane gas into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change
itself." Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin
Threatened by Warming, Arctic People File Suit Against US
AFP
December 7, 2005
Fresh water from melting icecap is causing
the collapse of the Oceanic Conveyor Belt.
Could the Atlantic Current Switch Off?
The Atlantic Ocean overturning that maintains Europe’s
moderate climate has slowed by 30 per cent according to scientists
from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton in research
published today in Nature National Oceanography Centre (UK)
December 8,
2005
Alarm Over
Dramatic
Weakening of Gulf Stream Ian Sample
The Guardian (UK)
December 1, 2005
Researchers on a scientific expedition in the Atlantic Ocean
measured the strength of the current between Africa and the east coast
of America and found that the circulation has slowed by 30% since a
previous expedition 12 years ago. The current, which drives the Gulf
Stream, delivers the equivalent of 1m power stations-worth of energy
to northern Europe, propping up temperatures by 10C in some regions.
The researchers found that the circulation has weakened by 6m tonnes
of water a second. Previous expeditions to check the current flow in
1957, 1981 and 1992 found only minor changes in its strength, although
a slowing was picked up in a further expedition in 1998. The decline
prompted the scientists to set up a £4.8m network of moored
instruments in the Atlantic to monitor changes in the current
continuously.
more
"The issue
is a global emergency,
a disaster underway.
It is not a potential threat.
It is with us now and gathering costs,
immediate and future, daily.
...The warming that is to come
will push the climate
well beyond the realm
of what scientists can predict in any detail
and into the realm of surprises." George
M. Woodwell, head of Woods Hole Research Center Amicus Journal, Spring 2001
After roughly 60 years of slow
freshening, the thermohaline collapse begins in 2010, disrupting the
temperate climate of Europe, which is made possible by the warm
flows of the Gulf Stream (the North Atlantic arm of the global
thermohaline conveyor). Ocean circulation patterns change, bringing
less warm water north and causing an immediate shift in the weather
in Northern Europe and eastern North America. The North Atlantic
Ocean continues to be affected by fresh water coming from melting
glaciers, Greenland’s ice sheet, and perhaps most importantly
increased rainfall and runoff. Decades of high-latitude warming
cause increased precipitation and bring additional fresh water to
the salty, dense water in the North, which is normally affected
mainly by warmer and saltier water from the Gulf Stream. That
massive current of warm water no longer reaches far into the North
Atlantic. The immediate climatic effect is cooler temperatures in
Europe and throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere and a dramatic
drop in rainfall in many key agricultural and populated areas.
However, the effects of the collapse will be felt in fits and
starts, as the traditional weather patterns re-emerge only to be
disrupted again—for a full decade.
The dramatic slowing of the thermohaline
circulation is anticipated by some ocean researchers, but the United
States is not sufficiently prepared for its effects, timing, or
intensity. ...The United States and Australia are
likely to build defensive fortresses around their countries because
they have the resources and reserves to achieve self-sufficiency.
With diverse growing climates, wealth, technology, and abundant
resources, the United States could likely survive shortened growing
cycles and harsh weather conditions without catastrophic losses.
Borders will be strengthened around the country to hold back
unwanted starving immigrants from the Caribbean islands (an
especially severe problem), Mexico, and South America. Energy supply
will be shored up through expensive (economically, politically, and
morally) alternatives such as nuclear, renewables, hydrogen, and
Middle Eastern contracts. ...The intractable problem facing the
nation will be calming the mounting military tension around the
world.
"Ahead of us lie dangerous
times. There are serious problems that derive from the realities of
the external world: climate change, loss of biological diversity, new
and re-emerging diseases, and more. Many of these threats are not yet
immediate, yet their non-linear character is such that we need to be
acting today. And we have no evolutionary experience of acting on
behalf of a distant future; we even lack basic understanding of
important aspects of our own institutions and societies. Sadly, for
many, the response is to retreat from complexity and difficulty by
embracing the darkness of fundamentalist unreason." Lord May of Oxford
Science Faces 'Dangerous Times' Helen Briggs BBC (UK)
November 30, 2005
For the fourth consecutive year, NSIDC and NASA
scientists using satellite data have tracked a stunning reduction in arctic sea ice at the
end of the northern summer. ...Incorporating the 2005 minimum, with a projection for ice
growth in the last few days of September, the estimated decline in end-of-summer Arctic
sea ice is now approximately 8 percent per decade. All four years have ice extents
approximately 20 percent less than the 1978 through 2000 average. This decline in sea ice
amounts to approximately 1.3 million square kilometers (500,000 square miles). This is an
area roughly equivalent to twice the size of Texas. more
New Study Warns of
Total Loss of Arctic Tundra Andrew C. Revkin
The New York Times November 1, 2005
"The question is no longer whether we will need to address this problem, but when we
will need to address the problem," said Kenneth Caldeira, an author of the study and
a climate expert at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, based at
Stanford University. "We can either address it now, before we severely and
irreversibly damage our climate, or we can wait until irreversible damage manifests itself
strongly," Dr. Caldeira said. "If all we do is try to adapt, things will get
worse and worse."
I urge you to do all you can to
ensure that the United States takes meaningful action at the local,
state, national and international levels to address global warming,
one of the single greatest challenges we face today.
Even though the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and
the National Academy of Sciences have concluded that the continued
buildup of global warming pollution in the atmosphere threatens the
economies, environments and citizens of the United States and other
countries around the world, the Bush administration continues to block
international progress to reduce global warming pollution.
Please lead our country in the right direction by taking the
following actions: 1. Co-sponsor the Lugar-Biden Climate Change Resolution (S. Res
312) calling for the United States to participate in international
climate change agreements. 2. Act on the June 2005 "Sense of the Senate" resolution to
adopt mandatory limits to slow, stop and reverse the growth of global
warming pollutants in the United States. 3. Call on the Bush administration to let the Kyoto Protocol
move forward and to stop blocking negotiations for global action in
the agreement's next phase after 2012.
It's time for the United States to take the lead in supporting global
progress on this critical issue.
S. RES. 312
Expressing the sense of the Senate regarding
the need for the United States to address global climate change
through the negotiation of fair and effective international
commitments.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
November 15, 2005
Mr. LUGAR (for himself and Mr. BIDEN) submitted the
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign
Relations
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the Senate regarding
the need for the United States to address global climate change
through the negotiation of fair and effective international
commitments.
Whereas there is a scientific consensus, as
established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and
confirmed by the National Academy of Sciences, that the continued
buildup of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere threatens
the stability of the global climate;
Whereas there are significant long-term risks to the
economy and the environment of the United States from the temperature
increases and climatic disruptions that are projected to result from
increased greenhouse gas concentrations;
Whereas the potential impacts of global climate
change, including long-term drought, famine, mass migration, and
abrupt climatic shifts, may lead to international tensions and
instability in regions affected and thereby have implications for the
national security interests of the United States;
Whereas the United States, as the largest economy in
the world, is also the largest greenhouse gas emitter;
Whereas the greenhouse gas emissions of the United
States are currently projected to continue to rise;
Whereas the greenhouse gas emissions of developing
countries are rising more rapidly than the emissions of the United
States and will soon surpass the greenhouse gas emissions of the
United States and other developed countries;
Whereas reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the
levels necessary to avoid serious climatic disruption requires the
introduction of new energy technologies and other climate friendly
technologies, the use of which results in low or no emissions of
greenhouse gases or in the capture and storage of greenhouse gases;
Whereas the development and sale of climate-friendly
technologies in the United States and internationally presents
economic opportunities for workers and businesses in the United
States;
Whereas climate-friendly technologies can improve
air quality by reducing harmful pollutants from stationary and mobile
sources, and can enhance energy security by reducing reliance on
imported oil, diversifying energy sources, and reducing the
vulnerability of energy delivery infrastructure;
Whereas other industrialized countries are
undertaking measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which
provides the industries in those countries with a competitive
advantage in the growing global market for climate-friendly
technologies;
Whereas efforts to limit emissions growth in
developing countries in a manner that is consistent with the
development needs of those countries could establish significant
markets for climate-friendly technologies and contribute to
international efforts to address climate change;
Whereas the United States is a party to the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, done at New York May
9, 1992, and entered into force in 1994 (hereinafter referred to as
the `Convention');
Whereas the Convention sets a long-term objective of
stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level
that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the
climate system;
Whereas the Convention establishes that parties bear
common but differentiated responsibilities for efforts to achieve the
objective of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations;
Whereas an effective global effort to address
climate change must provide for commitments and action by all
countries that are major emitters of greenhouse gases, developed and
developing alike, and the widely varying circumstances among the
developed and developing countries may require that such commitments
and action vary; and
Whereas the United States has the capability to lead
the effort against global climate change: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is
the sense of the Senate that the United States should act to reduce
the health, environmental, economic, and national security risks posed
by global climate change and foster sustained economic growth through
a new generation of technologies, by--
(1) participating in negotiations under the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, done at New
York May 9, 1992, and entered into force in 1994, and leading
efforts in other international fora, with the objective of securing
United States participation in agreements that--
(A) advance and protect the economic
and national security interests of the United States;
(B) establish mitigation commitments
by all countries that are major emitters of greenhouse gases,
consistent with the principle of common but differentiated
responsibilities;
(C) establish flexible international
mechanisms to minimize the cost of efforts by participating
countries; and
(D) achieve a significant long-term
reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions; and
(2) establishing a bipartisan Senate observer
group, the members of which shall be designated by the chairman and
ranking member of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate,
to--
(A) monitor any international
negotiations on climate change; and
(B) ensure that the advice and
consent function of the Senate is exercised in a manner to
facilitate timely consideration of any applicable treaty submitted
to the Senate.
FLASHBACK
Ford
Commits To Clean Air Future; Dumps Anti-Global-Warming Lobbying Group "Global Climate
Coalition" Richard D. Masters December
6, 1999
Facing growing anger from
environmentalist groups and mounting scientific evidence of the highest caliber indicating
global climate change, the Ford Motor Company announced today that it was renouncing its
membership in the industry lobbying group "Global Climate Coalition." At the
1997 Climate Change Convention in Kyoto, Japan, the outspoken environmentalist
organization Earth First branded the GCC as "the top of 'Dirty Dozen'
climate-wrecking firms and industry organizations" and condemned it for
"destroying prospects for an effective greenhouse gas reduction target by campaigning
in the USA against binding emission controls."
"The Kyoto Protocol does not need to be a job killer and a
drain on the U.S. economy, as the Global Climate Coalition and other critics of the Kyoto
Protocol have claimed," criticized Howard Geller, Executive Director of the American
Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) in 1998. "The Global Climate
Coalition and the coal and oil industries use worst case, implausible assumptions that
lead directly to job loss and lower economic growth," Geller stated. "These
assumptions include imposition of a carbon tax without offsetting reductions in other
taxes, no consideration of technological innovation, no cost savings from energy
efficiency improvements, no benefits from reducing smog, soot, and acid rain with the same
technologies that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and no international trading or
joint implementation. "In effect, the Global Climate Coalition assumes the Kyoto
Protocol would be met in a costly, inflexible, dumb manner. New technologies, such as more
efficient appliances, lighting, vehicles, and industrial processes, as well as renewable
energy sources, are the key to cutting greenhouse gas emissions without harming the
economy. By taking a technology-oriented approach, the United States and other nations can
create new industries and jobs, save consumers money, and greatly reduce GHG
emissions."
According to the Associated Press, Ford spokesman Terry
Bresnihann admitted "being in GCC has become something of an impediment to pursuing
our environmental initiatives in a credible way.''
John Passacantando, Executive Director of atmospheric protection
activist group Ozone Action, praised Ford's decision. "In the same way that the GCC's
power over the years has represented industry's unwillingness to acknowledge global
warming, its current disintegration is a signal that corporate America is finally
recognizing the reality of the threat," he said. "We have all suffered from a
decade of lies on global warming from corporate America. Now we finally have Bill Ford
Jr., Chairman of one of our country's largest manufacturers, standing up saying that he
wants to tell the truth about our most pressing environmental crisis. It makes for a
promising end to the century."
Global Climate Coalition Executive Director Glenn Kelly
responded to Ford's resignation by saying, "What is most disappointing about
Ford’s decision is that it seems to be driven by a campaign of misinformation by
fringe environmental groups such as Ozone Action who disregard the serious nature of this
debate with scare tactics, half-truths and outright distortions."
By turning its back on the GCC, Ford joins ex-members Royal
Dutch Shell, British Petroleum/Amoco and Dow Chemical in a united front of Fortune 500
companies recognizing the threat of global warming and working to develop technological
solutions.
"We do believe there is something to climate change. There
is enough evidence that something is happening that we ought to start looking at this
seriously,'' the Associated Press quoted Ford spokesman Terry Bresnihan on Monday.
"I liked the Kyoto Protocol.
I helped to write it.
And I signed it." MONTREAL:
Clinton Warns of Climate Peril,
Demands US Switch Out of Fossil Fuels
AFP December 9, 2005
In a show-stealing appearance rumored to have ired the US delegation,
Clinton defended the UN's Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases that was
ditched by his successor, President George W. Bush, and said the switch to
cleaner energy would create millions of jobs for the American economy.
"Recent evidence strongly suggests that parts of the
Antarctic ice sheet are losing mass, and contributing to sea-level rise, at rates far
greater than has been previously thought. Much of the evidence comes from satellite
observations of the ice sheet, which have revolutionised the way in which we view the ice
sheet and have highlighted a range of ways in which the ice sheet may respond to climate
change over the period of years to decades, and much faster than previously thought. These
mechanisms are not included in the large-scale models currently used to predict the
contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet to future sea levels. Dr Tony Payne
Professor of Glaciology at the University of Bristol and
Co-director of the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling World
Experts Meeting About Impact of Antarctic Climate Change on Global Sea Levels
The Royal Society (UK)
October 17, 2005
B FOR SALE: CLIMATE SKEPTICS
(CHEAP)
Bobby "Boris" Pickett
of "Monster Mash"
Fame Rips Bush
Cronies PLAY Over Global Warming
Rick Guidice Artist conception of the surface of
Venus NASA AmesLab
"Those who are skeptical about carbon dioxide
greenhouse warning might profitably note the massive greenhouse effect on Venus. No one
proposes that Venus's greenhouse effect derives from imprudent Venusians who burned too
much coal, drove fuel-inefficient autos, and cut down their forests. My point is
different. The climatological history of our planetary neighbor, an otherwise Earthlike
planet on which the surface became hot enough to melt tin or lead, is worth considering
— especially by those who say that the increasing greenhouse effect on Earth will be
self-correcting, that we don't really have to worry about it, or (you can see this in the
publications of some groups that call themselves conservative) that the greenhouse effect
is a hoax."
Carl Sagan, The Pale Blue Dot
"I can think of a recent disaster that shows what
happens when a country neglects its duties of state towards its people....
My post as chancellor, which I still hold, does not allow me to name that
country, but you all know that I am talking about America." Prime Minister Gerhard Schroeder,
Germany
Washington Furious Over Martin's Climate Comments Canadian Broadcasting Corp
Dec 9, 2005
--HURRICANE WILMA--
CATASTROPHIC CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE 881 MILLIBARS!
"Probably the lowest minimum pressure ever observed
in the Atlantic Basin."
National Hurricane Center 5 AM EDT
WED OCT 19 2005
"Wilma has developed the dreaded pinhole eye."
National Hurricane Center 11
PM EDT TUE OCT 18 2005
Sea Ice Decline IntensifiesSeptember 28, 2005
Summer Arctic sea ice falls far below average for fourth year,
winter ice sees sharp decline, spring melt starts earlier...
If current rates of decline in sea ice continue, the summertime Arctic could be
completely ice-free well before the end of this century.
This is a joint press release between the National Snow and Ice Data Center
(NSIDC), a part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the
University of Colorado, Boulder; NASA; and the University of Washington.
THIS
WEBSITE IS SUPPORTED
BY SALES OF
HYDROGEN
HAWAII
Telly Award Finalist
Director: RD Masters
90-minute DVD from Amazon.com or watch it now with
Amazon On Demand
"It could well be that the first country to
seriously address the issues of creating a market for renewables would
become the central location for a major new international business
sector - with all the positive consequences that carries in terms of
economic activity and employment." ------------- Rodney Chase
CEO BP --------------
"We all share the responsibility for carrying out this project, for the
assumption of responsibility is part of the dignity of human beings."
------------ Juergen Shrempp
Chairman
DaimlerChrysler
-----------
"Energy sources like coal and oil once overcame an economy based on
horsepower. So, I suspect, our carbon-based economy may itself pass from
the scene to be replaced, perhaps, by hydrogen."
------------- Spencer Abraham
Secretary,
US Dept of Energy -------------
"General Motors absolutely sees the long-term future of the world being
based on a hydrogen economy.” ------------ Larry Burns
Director of R&D
General Motors
-------------
"Our heritage and ideals, our
code and standards 
“Because
Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency continues to wantonly ignore its
duty to regulate pollution, California is forced to seek judicial action.”
"The climate centres around the world, which are the equivalent of the
pathology lab of a hospital, have reported the Earth's physical condition,
and the climate specialists see it as seriously ill, and soon to pass into
a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years. I have to tell you,
as members of the Earth's family and an intimate part of it, that you and
especially civilisation are in grave danger. 
James Inhofe
"On climate, the
public has been misinformed and not informed. The foundation of a
democracy is an informed public, which obviously means an honestly
informed public. That's the big issue here."
FOR SALE: 
