Al Gore: “We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change”

Al Gore has a well-crafted lengthy op-ed in the NY Times on the climate crisis that I recommend reading.  I’m posting some excerpts below.

“Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.”

“But the scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged. It is also worth noting that the panel’s scientists — acting in good faith on the best information then available to them — probably underestimated the range of sea-level rise in this century, the speed with which the Arctic ice cap is disappearing and the speed with which some of the large glacial flows in Antarctica and Greenland are melting and racing to the sea.

Because these and other effects of global warming are distributed globally, they are difficult to identify and interpret in any particular location. For example, January was seen as unusually cold in much of the United States. Yet from a global perspective, it was the second-hottest January since surface temperatures were first measured 130 years ago.”

“Though there have been impressive efforts by many business leaders, hundreds of millions of individuals and families throughout the world and many national, regional and local governments, our civilization is still failing miserably to slow the rate at which these emissions are increasing — much less reduce them.”

“This comes with painful costs. China, now the world’s largest and fastest-growing source of global-warming pollution, had privately signaled early last year that if the United States passed meaningful legislation, it would join in serious efforts to produce an effective treaty. When the Senate failed to follow the lead of the House of Representatives, forcing the president to go to Copenhagen without a new law in hand, the Chinese balked. With the two largest polluters refusing to act, the world community was paralyzed.”

“Second, we should have no illusions about the difficulty and the time needed to convince the rest of the world to adopt a completely new approach. The lags in the global climate system, including the buildup of heat in the oceans from which it is slowly reintroduced into the atmosphere, means that we can create conditions that make large and destructive consequences inevitable long before their awful manifestations become apparent: the displacement of hundreds of millions of climate refugees, civil unrest, chaos and the collapse of governance in many developing countries, large-scale crop failures and the spread of deadly diseases.”

“From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption. After all has been said and so little done, the truth about the climate crisis — inconvenient as ever — must still be faced.”

“We have overcome existential threats before. Winston Churchill is widely quoted as having said, “Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes, you must do what is required.” Now is that time. Public officials must rise to this challenge by doing what is required; and the public must demand that they do so — or must replace them.”

Bill McKibben: The O.J. Tactic

350.org leader Bill McKibben has a great op-ed out in the L.A. Times where he likens the arguments of climate skeptics to the argument the lawyers for O.J. Simpson used in his trial.  I’m re-posting the whole thing below.

The O.J. tactic

Climate change skeptics sound like Simpson’s lawyers: If the winter glove won’t fit, you must acquit.

Opinion

February 24, 2010|By Bill McKibben

In recent years, every major scientific body in the world has produced reports confirming the peril of climate change. All 15 of the warmest years on record have come in the last two decades. And Earth’s major natural systems are all showing undeniable signs of rapid flux: melting Arctic and glacial ice, rapidly acidifying seawater and so on.

Yet because of a recent onslaught of attacks on the science of climate change, fewer Americans now believe humans are warming the planet than did just a few years ago.

The doubters of climate science have launched an enormously clever — and effective — campaign, and it’s worth trying to understand how they’ve done it. The best analogy is perhaps the O.J. Simpson trial.

The “dream team” of lawyers assembled for Simpson’s defense had a problem: The evidence against their client was formidable. Nicole Brown Simpson’s blood was all over his socks, and that was just the beginning. So Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, Alan Dershowitz, F. Lee Bailey, Robert Kardashian et al decided to attack the process, arguing that it put Simpson’s guilt in doubt — and doubt, of course, was all they needed. Hence, those days of cross-examination about exactly how Dennis Fung had transported blood samples and which racial slurs LAPD Det. Mark Fuhrman had used.

In his closing arguments, Cochran compared Fuhrman to Adolf Hitler and called him “a genocidal racist, a perjurer, America’s worst nightmare and the personification of evil.” His only real audience was the jury, many of whom had good reason to dislike the Los Angeles Police Department, but the team managed to instill considerable doubt in lots of Americans tuning in on TV as well. That’s what happens when you spend week after week dwelling on the cracks in a case, no matter how small they may be. They made convincing mountains from the molehills they had to work with.

Similarly, the immense pile of evidence now proving the science of global warming beyond any reasonable doubt is in some ways a great boon for those who deny that the biggest problem we’ve ever faced is actually a problem at all. If you have a three-page report, it won’t be overwhelming, but it’s also unlikely to have many mistakes. Three thousand pages (the length of the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)? That pretty much guarantees you’ll get some things wrong.

Indeed, the panel managed to include half a dozen errors — most egregiously a spurious date for the year by which Himalayan glaciers will disappear. It won’t happen by 2035, as the report indicated — a fact that has now been spread so widely across the Internet that it’s more or less obliterated the indisputable fact that virtually every glacier on the planet is busily melting.

Similarly, much has been made of the so-called Climategate scandal involving thousands of hacked e-mails and documents from a British research center. A few of the communications suggested the scientists were dismissive of research that came to conclusions they disagreed with. One British scientist, Phil Jones, has been placed on leave while his university decides if he should be punished for, among other things, not complying with Freedom of Information Act requests.

Jones could be considered the Mark Fuhrman of climate science; focus on him and maybe people will ignore the inconvenient mountain of evidence about climate change that the world’s scientific researchers have compiled.

The skeptics also have taken advantage of lucky breaks that have crossed their path, such as the recent record set of snowstorms that hit Washington. It doesn’t matter that such a record is just the kind of thing scientists have been predicting, given the extra water vapor global warming is adding to the atmosphere. The doubters simply question how it can be suddenly super-snowy if the world is actually warming.

For a gifted political operative like, say, Marc Morano, who runs the Climate Depot website, the massive snowfalls this winter provided grist for a hundred posts poking fun at the very idea that anyone could still possibly believe in, you know, physics. Morano truly is talented — he immediately posted a link to a live webcam so readers could watch snow coming down. Meanwhile, his former boss, Oklahoma’s Republican Sen. James Inhofe, had his grandchildren build an igloo on the Capitol grounds, with a sign that read: “Al Gore’s New Home.”

These are the things that stick in people’s heads. If the winter glove won’t fit, you must acquit.

In the long run, the climate-deniers will be a footnote to history. But by delaying action, they will have helped prevent us from taking the steps we need to take while there’s still time. If we’re going to make real change while it matters, it’s important to remember that their skepticism isn’t the root of the problem. It simply plays on our deep-seated resistance to change.

That inertia is what gives the climate cynics ground to operate. That’s what we need to overcome, and at bottom that’s a battle about data, but also about courage and hope. In the last year, we’ve rallied millions of people in almost every country to demand action on climate change, and to start building the world beyond fossil fuel. The truth will out.

Bill McKibben is the author of a dozen books, including the forthcoming “Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.” He’s a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont and the founder of 350.org, a global grass-roots climate campaign. A longer version of this article can be read at tomdispatch.com

Reid calls for Climate Bill ASAP

It’s about time(although I’ll reserve judgement until I see what’s in this thing, might be ugly).  article

“Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has instructed Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to produce a revamped climate bill as soon as possible, according to sources, a task Kerry intends to accomplish within two weeks”

Energy & Commerce Committee Investigates Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing

This post is a little late, but important nonetheless considering the growing influence of natural gas in the energy mix and climate debate.
WASHINGTON, DC — Chairman Henry A. Waxman and Subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey today sent letters to eight oil and gas companies that use hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and natural gas from unconventional sources in the United States.  The Committee is requesting information on the chemicals used in fracturing fluids and the potential impact of the practice on the environment and human health.

“Hydraulic fracturing could help us unlock vast domestic natural gas reserves once thought unattainable, strengthening America’s energy independence and reducing carbon emissions,” said Chairman Waxman.  “As we use this technology in more parts of the country on a much larger scale, we must ensure that we are not creating new environmental and public health problems.  This investigation will help us better understand the potential risks this technology poses to drinking water supplies and the environment, and whether Congress needs to act to minimize those risks.”

“Natural gas can play a very important role in our clean energy future, provided that it is produced in a safe and sustainable way,” said Subcommittee Chairman Markey.  “By getting more information from the industry about hydraulic fracturing practices, Congress can help ensure that development of this important resource moves forward in a manner that does not harm the environment.”

As Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in the last Congress, Rep. Waxman requested and received information from the largest hydraulic fracturing companies – Halliburton, BJ Services, and Schlumberger – on the chemicals used in their fracturing fluids. According to this data, two of these companies used diesel fuel in their fracturing fluids between 2005 and 2007, potentially violating a voluntary agreement with EPA to cease using diesel.  Halliburton reported using more than 807,000 gallons of seven diesel-based fluids.  BJ Services reported using 2,500 gallons of diesel-based fluids in several fracturing jobs.  Halliburton and BJ Services also indicated that they used other chemicals – such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene – that could pose environmental risks in their fracturing fluids.

Today Chairmen Waxman and Markey sent letters seeking additional information from Halliburton, BJ Services, and Schlumberger on these and related issues.  The Chairmen requested similar information from five smaller fracturing companies that comprise a growing share of the market:  Frac Tech Services, Superior Well Services, Universal Well Services, Sanjel Corporation, and Calfrac Well Services.

In addition, the Chairmen sent a memo to Members of the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment detailing the background on the issue, including EPA’s recent work on hydraulic fracturing, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s investigative findings, and the need for additional oversight and investigation.

The letters and the memo are available on the Committee on Energy and Commerce’s website at this link.

Greenpeace takes on Facebook over Coal Powered Data Center

I had a post last week about Facebook’s new data center being powered with coal.  Greenpeace jumped on Facebook not long after, and I’m sharing some parts of a recent blog post Greenpeace has made on the issue.

“How the internet is powered is an issue not just for Facebook but for the entire IT industry. The industry holds many of the keys to reaching our climate goals by innovating internet based solutions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and increase energy efficiency. Technologies that enable smart grids, zero emissions buildings, and more efficient transport systems are central to efforts to combat climate change.

However, the IT industry’s global environmental footprint is still growing — in fact, it’s set to double by 2020. In 2008, The Climate Group and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) issued SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. The study showed the incredible efficiencies IT can create, but it also highlighted the massive footprint of the IT industry and predicted that because of the rapid economic expansion in places like India and China, among other causes, demand for IT services will quadruple by 2020.”

“Moreover, burning coal contributes the largest share of CO2 emissions globally, as well as contributing to increased asthma, acid rain, and mortality from other pollutants. Facebook’s decision to choose a company primarily powered by coal over other cleaner sources of energy is a missed opportunity to strike a blow against this dirty fuel and drive a clean energy economy. We expect more from a company that was recently named the most innovative by Fast Companymagazine.

In fact, other data center operators are realizing that efficiency is only part of the equation in dealing with company footprint. Yahoosimilarly chose a cooler climate in Buffalo, NY for a data center in order to reduce the need for energy intensive cooling systems, but it chose its location based on access to lower carbon hydropower.Google has established Google Energy, which was recently granted its application to become a wholesale electricity buyer and seller. Google will hopefully use this standing to drive more renewable energy powered data centers.”

“We want Facebook users to tell the company that you love using Facebook, but you want them to dump coal. You can get involved by joining one of the numerous Facebook groups that have sprung up to raise awareness about Facebook’s choice of coal power for its Prineville data center. You can also use your networks and creativity to spread the word on other online social networks about the campaign. The internet is one of the greatest inventions& ever for creating social change. Let’s use it.”

UMD and College Park come to Agreement over Washington Post Plant, Hillock Saved

I had a post a couple of weeks ago about whether the University of Maryland and the City of College Park could reach consensus on the university’s purchase of the Washington Post Plant.

Here is what I wrote: “The environmental community in College Park has been on the edge of its seat since it was brought to light that the University of Maryland had made a bid for the abandoned Washington Post Plant in College Park.  The point of the purchase was for UMD to relocate its facilities from East Campus to the plant, so they could do their East Campus development.  This move would mean that the fight to save the Wooded Hillock, 9 acres of forest, would be won by the environmental activists advocating for its preservation.  However, the City is upset about this decision because of the lack of transparency that led up to it, along with the fact that College Park would lose tax revenue from UMD owning the plan since they’re a state institution, and thus tax exempt.  The Maryland Board of Public Works has to approve the purchase, and the approval is likely contingent on the support of the city.

So the question is, can UMD and the city agree to a PILOT(payment in lieu of taxes) where the university would compensate the city for some of all of its lost revenue?  I think that answer is yes because both parties badly want to see the East Campus development completed, and they won’t let something as petty as a few hundred thousand dollars get in the way of a 900 million dollar development that would generate a lot of tax revenue for the city, and graduate housing for the university.

The following is the letter the city council sent to the university after their meeting on Tuesday, and the response the university recently sent back.  It looks like they’re moving towards an agreement.

Dr. Mote Washing Post Letter

President_Mote_Feb_7_letter

I recently received a new letter the city sent to the board of public works supporting the purchase.  The two parties came to an agreement.  Here is the letter.

The noteworthy environmental excerpt from the letter: “We are also pleased that UMCP has confirmed that, with the purchase of the Post Plant, the University has no plans to use any part of the wooded hillock area on campus for building sites, and is currently studying the best uses for this area that meet the expectations of the academic community”

Game

Set

and Match

University of Maryland gets Solar Panels

The Diamondback has an article out today about my university getting solar panels on the roof of its dining hall.  I’m re-posting it below.

New solar panels on Diner’s roof should save $1.7M annually

by Dana Cetrone

The Diner is going solar.

Twenty new solar panels that will be used to generate heat were installed on the roof of The Diner in North Campus last week — the latest step in a university plan to overhaul utilities in nine buildings to be more energy efficient.

The 20 solar panels are meant to generate one-third of The Diner’s hot water, which is used for cooking and washing dishes and hands, university officials said.

Although the projects included in the Energy Performance Contract will cost $20 million, Dining Services officials said in the end, the university will break even in costs because the money saved will be used to pay back the 10-year loan it received from a state program used to foot the construction bill.

“The solar panels are just a piece of the amazing energy saving puzzle we are so proud of,” Assistant Director of Facilities for Dining Services Greg Thompson said.

In line with the university’s long-term goal of reducing the carbon footprint of the campus to zero by 2050, the solar panel instillation comes on the heels of a slew of other green alterations being made to campus facilities.

According to the report issued on the project in October, the expected annual carbon reduction these alterations will provide is equal to the university planting about 20,700 trees every year.

This year, the university equipped high-rise dorms and other newly constructed buildings with water-conserving toilets, exchanged all lights on the campus with energy-efficient fixtures, replaced all air conditioning compressors and added five new exhaust hoods —used to moderate the amount of steam allowed to escape — onto building pipes .

“When completed, it is projected to save about $1.7 million annually in avoided energy costs — nearly 5 million kilowatt-hours and 2.5 million gallons of water,” Facilities’ Conservation Manager Susan Corry said.

The exhaust hoods alone have already saved 26,000 kilowatts per hour each since being installed in the last year, said Joe Mullineaux, senior associate director of Dining Services.

“The Energy-Saving Opportunity began about one year ago, and all upgrades to North Campus Diner will be completed by the end of the semester,” Mullineaux said.

Johnson Controls, the company responsible for installing all the new, green utilities, will be paid with money borrowed from the state through a program that offers up to $70 million in loans to government agencies to purchase construction equipment.

Solar panels are also expected to be installed on the roof of Cole Field House. They will be primarily used to power the Driskell Center — a center dedicated to studying and showcasing African Diaspora art and culture.

Project construction in other campus locations is expected to continue through April 2011. Looking to the future, facilities officials have said the university may expand the project to encompass six more buildings, including the Art-Sociology Building, the Plant Sciences Building and Easton Hall. But the South Campus Dining Hall will not see any new solar panels or other green equipment installed anytime soon.

Clean energy education: RE-ENERGYSE America

I had an Op-Ed out today in The Diamondback on RE-ENERGYSE, a federal clean energy education initiative the Obama administration is proposing.

Clean energy education: RE-ENERGYSE America

by Matt Dernoga

As far as states go, this state is fairly ambitious when it comes to producing clean energy, creating green jobs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In 2009, Gov. Martin O’Malley approved a law mandating the state to reduce these emissions to 25 percent below 2006 levels by 2020. This can largely be achieved by reaching for low-hanging fruit, such as energy efficiency and deployment of existing low-carbon technologies. But what about after 2020? What about the other 75 percent?

We shouldn’t just be asking this question about emissions for the state but also the United States and the emerging clean energy industry throughout the world. As countries and states pick the low-hanging fruit, they’re going to look for more advanced, innovative and efficient technologies to get steeper emissions reductions. Is the United States going to be importing them or exporting them?

RE-ENERGYSE, a new federal education initiative centered on the exploding clean energy sector, has been proposed by President Barack Obama’s administration. If funded by Congress for fiscal year 2011, RE-ENERGYSE would be run by the Energy Department and the National Science Foundation with an initial investment of $74 million in clean energy-related education at K-12 schools, universities, and community and technical colleges. The beloved Solar Decathlon, a competition to build the most attractive energy-efficient, solar-powered house in which this university won second place in 2007, would become part of this program.

RE-ENERGYSE would create cutting-edge undergraduate and graduate clean energy programs in universities, provide scores of scholarships and fellowships for aspiring scientists and engineers and equip thousands of technically skilled workers at community colleges for clean energy jobs. It has a goal of putting up to 6,000 professionals into the clean energy sector by 2016, and up to 13,000 by 2021.

This support could see scientists from this university playing a key role in the development of new energy sources. Our scientists are already working on cellulosic ethanol and biofuels from algae. The Chesapeake Bay region could significantly benefit from the commercial development of cellulosic ethanol, considering the large amount of biomass we get from all the feedstocks grown. Scientists are experimenting with growing algae at wastewater treatment plants, which could filter a source of the bay’s water pollution and then produce a renewable fuel.

I constantly read about the potential for new breakthroughs such as solar panels that capture infrared radiation, meaning they would work at night, or a new test plant in Norway that uses the simple process of osmosis to drive a turbine and generate electricity. I’m not kidding — Google it.

Funding RE-ENERGYSE is far from a slam dunk. In 2009, the Obama administration appropriated it in its fiscal year 2010 budget, but it was nixed in the Senate’s appropriations process. This is why it’s important for students to write to their representatives in support of RE-ENERGYSE.

In order to lead the world in global energy technology this century, we have to do more than invest in green-collar jobs for today. We need to create an unparalleled clean energy education initiative to give our up and coming scientists the support they need to innovate for America. This will ensure the green jobs of tomorrow are ours. RE-ENERGYSE is an important step in the right direction — a step toward that other 75 percent. Let’s go for it.

Matt Dernoga is a senior government and politics major. He can be reached at dernoga at umdbk dot com.

Senator Jeff Merkley on Creating Green Jobs through Pollution Reduction

I thought this was pretty good

EPA Reveals Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Plan

The EPA is releasing a plan today to help restore the Great Lakes.  The AP’s John Flesher has the story here, and you can read more about the initiative on the EPA website.  If you would like to read the contents of the action plan, you can check it out here, and I’ve also linked to the pdf.

From the AP article: “The Obama administration has developed a five-year blueprint for rescuing the Great Lakes, a sprawling ecosystem plagued by toxic contamination, shrinking wildlife habitat and invasive species.

The plan envisions spending more than $2.2 billion for long-awaited repairs after a century of damage to the lakes, which hold 20 percent of the world’s fresh water. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the document, which Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, was releasing at a news conference Sunday in Washington.”

The following summary of the action plan is from the Great Lake Restoration Initiative’s website…

“U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson, in collaboration with 15 other federal agencies, have made restoring the Great Lakes a national priority. Signaling a commitment beyond measure of past promises, in February 2009, President Obama proposed $475 million for a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (Initiative). This Action Plan describes how the Initiative will be executed from 2010 through 2014.

The Initiative is not intended to be another grand statement about the Great Lakes; it is intended to operationalize those statements. It builds on countless hours by elected, agency, business, public interest and other leaders, which resulted in the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Strategy (GLRC Strategy). The GLRC Strategy provides a framework for the Action Plan, and the Action Plan is just that: an action driver. It articulates the most significant ecosystem problems and efforts to address them in five major focus areas:

• Toxic Substances and Areas of Concern, including pollution prevention and cleanup of the most polluted areas in the Great Lakes (see pages 19-21 for Measures of Progress with specific, quantifiable targets; and Principal Actions)
• Invasive Species, including efforts to institute a “zero tolerance policy” toward new invasions, including the establishment of self-sustaining populations of invasive species, such as Asian Carp (pages 24-26)
• Nearshore Health and Nonpoint Source Pollution, including a targeted geographic focus on high priority watersheds and reducing polluted runoff from urban, suburban and, agricultural sources (pages 29-30)
• Habitat and Wildlife Protection and Restoration, including bringing wetlands and other habitat back to life, and the first-ever comprehensive assessment of the entire 530,000 acres of Great Lakes coastal wetlands for the purpose of strategically targeting restoration and protection efforts in a science-based manner (pages 33-35)
• Accountability, Education, Monitoring, Evaluation, Communication and Partnerships, including the implementation of goal- and results-based accountability measures, learning initiatives, outreach and strategic partnerships (pages 38-39)

The Action Plan identifies goals, objectives, measurable ecological targets, and specific actions for each of the five focus areas identified above. The Action Plan will be used by federal agencies in the development of the federal budget for Great Lakes restoration in fiscal years 2011 and beyond. As such, it will serve as guidance for collaborative restoration work with participants to advance restoration. The Action Plan will also help advance the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement with Canada.