Posted by: Kory Raftery

Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

A new University of Florida study suggests that global warming 55 million years ago caused now-extinct carnivorous mammals to shrink in size. The study, scheduled to be published in the December edition of the Journal of Mammalian Evolution, explains that different species evolved to sizes much smaller than that of their ancestors during this warming period. Researchers say the Earth experienced increased levels of carbon dioxide and a drier environment during this period - but they do not completely understand exactly what caused the mammals to shrink. 

A multi-million dollar center where people will learn about climate change and the threat of sea level rise is slated to be built in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans near a floodwall that crumbled during Hurricane Katrina, destroying the neighborhood. The new climate change center, scheduled to open in 2011, will be funded with federal and private dollars. The physical design is still being worked out but a project spokeswoman said it would “serve as a community center and perhaps include job training services.” The area is still largely empty due to the devastation, but near where the center will stand, a number of energy efficient solar-powered homes are being built.

A powdered sugar like material, called "dry water," could provide a new way to absorb and store carbon dioxide, according to British scientists. In addition to trapping greenhouse gases, the powder has the potential to be used in a variety of other applications. It may, for instance, be a greener, more energy-efficient way of jumpstarting the chemical reactions used to make hundreds of pharmaceuticals and food products. Researchers assert dry water could also be used to store methane and may provide a safer way to store and transport potentially harmful industrial materials.

Posted by: Kory Raftery

Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

Despite the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s claims that global warming is undeniable and extreme weather events happening all over the globe - all six Republican candidates vying for Judd Gregg’s vacated U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire recently stood together to deny humans are contributing to climate change. Leading climate scientists agree that greenhouse gas pollution from burning fossil fuels is building up in the atmosphere at an increasing rate and recent studies show New England is not only warming, but experiencing a rash of extreme weather, like the 100-year flood events that happened in New Hampshire in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

In a time when wildfires continue to burn in Russia and the eastern seaboard of the U.S. has seen sweltering heat, Pakistan is now dealing with the worst flooding seen in the country in more than a century. The United Nations recently resolved to strengthen emergency relief efforts to the water stricken region and noted that the unprecedented floods reflected "the adverse impact of climate change and the growing vulnerability of countries to climate change." Climate scientists continue to point out there is a very real distinction between extreme weather and climate change but have asserted it is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent as a result of man-made global warming.

Clean energy investors in California are raising funds to do battle to defeat Proposition 23. The investors are raising millions of dollars for advertising that will be in contrast to messages put out by oil refiners who want to delay the state’s new law on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If the proposition passes, it would delay California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, signed into law by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006, which requires the state to reduce greenhouse gases linked to climate change to their 1990 levels by 2020.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

The highest global temperatures in recorded history—almost certainly a product of human-caused greenhouse gases—have triggered a series of terrifying calamities this year, including runaway forest fires in Russia, devastating mud slides in China and the ongoing floods in Pakistan.

Most of us can’t really grasp the scale of Pakistan’s tragedy, which ranks as one of the worst disasters in history. When the numbers get too big—20 million people affected, an area the size of England underwater, a quarter of Pakistan’s economy at risk—it’s easier to retreat into denial than to deal with it.

But Pakistan’s calamity is a wake-up call that what we used to call “natural” disasters aren’t so natural anymore, and they can happen anywhere. The deluge that swamped Pakistan was not a simple matter of natural variability in weather. "There's no doubt that clearly the climate change is . . . a major contributing factor," said Ghassem Asrar, director of the World Climate Research Programme and World Meteorological Organization in Geneva.

Since the globe is almost certain to continue warming, even if the world gets its act together and reduces carbon emissions, it’s imperative to find ways to adapt and make our communities and ecosystems more resilient. Pakistan offers a sad lesson in how not to do that.

As a small handful of commentators have noted, one reason for the devastating impact of Pakistan’s floods is decades of deforestation in the high country where monsoon rains fall. With reduced ground cover, the water spills off the land, sweeping away topsoil, causing landslides and swelling torrential rivers downstream.

A 2006 paper in the International Journal of Agriculture and Biology noted that “Studies based on remote sensing show that the rates of decline in forest cover in [the mountainous North West Frontier Province] will lead to a complete disappearance of the forest from most areas within 30 years.”

The causes of deforestation are many, including growing population pressure, the lack of alternative fuel and Pakisan's chaotic system of property rights. Many authorities also blame Pakistan’s forest department, which oversees timber sales, for colluding with timber contractors and permitting unsustainable harvests.

As Kamila Shamsie wrote recently in The Guardian, "One of the most powerful and ruthless organisations within Pakistan, the timber mafia engages in illegal logging, which is estimated to be worth billions of rupees each year. The group's connection to politicians at the local and federal level has been commented on in the media for years."

The lessons of all this have been neatly summed up by Adil Najam, a world-renowned environmental policy expert at Boston University:

The rains are clearly a natural phenomenon. But there is nothing natural about the death and destruction these rains have brought. That is all human-manufactured. Our arrogant policies that have disregarded the ecological integrity of the natural systems we depend upon have magnified the fury of the torrents that have been sweeping across Pakistan. . . . I hope we will learn from what we have been seeing and plan for a more sustainable development in the rebuilding process, and also realise that whether we ’cause’ climate change or not, it is we — and especially the poorest amongst us — who will suffer its gravest consequences.”

Posted by: Kory Raftery

Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

The World Meteorological Organization reported that this summer's extreme weather events - including record breaking temperatures in Asia, flooding in Pakistan and fires in Russia - fit 2007 projections of "more frequent and more intense extreme weather events due to global warming." The projections came from a report authored by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While leading climatologists do not maintain that global warming is the only factor in floods, droughts and fires, they do claim that man-made global warming is already stacking the odds for more extreme events in the near future. 

Researchers reported a 100-square-mile chunk of ice separated from a glacier in Greenland. It was the most massive ice island to break away in the Arctic in a half-century of observation. Satellite data from the Arctic Ocean shows the ocean area covered by ice last month was the second-lowest ever recorded for July. Changes in the global ice sheet “are happening fast, and we are definitely losing more ice mass than we had anticipated," a NASA scientist said.

A new study shows more than 40 species of fish off the coast of Australia are migrating elsewhere as sea temperatures change. The study, conducted by the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), asserts the species on the go account for roughly 30 percent of the country’s near shore coastal fish. CSIRO has identified south-eastern Australia as a climate change hotspot, with well documented changes already occurring over the last 70 years.

Posted by: Kory Raftery

Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

Global Warming could be a major contributor to the demise of the rainforest as we know it. A new study in the journal Conservation Letters claims by the year 2100, nearly half of the plant and animal life in rainforests will not be able to exist as they do today because of deforestation and climate change. The study suggests the Amazon Basin alone could see changes in biodiversity for nearly 80 percent of the region. The report consists of studies done in Central and South America, Asia and Africa.

Just about a week after roughly 300 of the world’s top climate scientists revealed that they have all concluded man-made global warming is “undeniable,” the Arctic discovery of a well-preserved British ship has some oil companies looking past shrinking glaciers and other the negative impacts of global warming to see a lucrative silver lining. Canadian parks officials say they were only able to locate the vessel, which sank 155 years ago, because the ocean is almost completely ice free. Shortly after the ship was found, three huge oil companies announced they are joining forces to more efficiently look for oil and natural gas deposits under the sea close to where the boat was located off Canadian shores.

UN climate talks aimed at curbing the threat of global warming seem to be moving in the wrong direction after a week-long session in Germany. Even as evidence mounts that continued warming could yield deadly impacts, negotiators are reporting that chances for a compromise are giving way to finger pointing. Record global temperatures, forest fires in Russia and deadly floods in Pakistan "are all consistent with the kind of changes we could expect from climate change, and they will get worse if we don't act quickly," said the top U.S. negotiator. "Unfortunately, what we have seen is that some countries are walking back from the progress made in Copenhagen.”

Posted by: Kory Raftery

Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

Global warming is undeniable, according to the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA). NOAA’s annual “State of the Climate” report takes into account data from a variety of climate indicators. Some of the indicators, such as ocean heat content and temperature over land, are increasing. Others, such as sea ice cover and snow cover, are decreasing. The report also suggests that more than 90 percent of that heat trapped by greenhouses gases over the past 50 years has been absorbed into the oceans.

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson effectively told 10 groups challenging regulations based on the science behind global warming... you’re wrong. “Defenders of the status quo will try to slow our efforts to get America running on clean energy,” said Jackson. “A better solution would be to join the vast majority of the American people who want to see more green jobs, more clean energy innovation and an end to the oil addiction that pollutes our planet and jeopardizes our national security.”

A recent report claims big coal companies will dig into more than just mines to protect their business interests, preparing to spend big to defeat political candidates they consider “anti-coal.” New rules allow companies and labor unions not directly coordinated with politicians to set up political non-profit organizations that do not have campaign spending limits. They also do not have to report their political financial activities. One such group in West Virginia has identified three Democrats as “anti-coal” and is sending letters to companies asking for funding to support advertising that would “let their (the coal industry’s) voices be heard.”

The United Kingdom passed a law making it impossible for new coal-fired power plants to be constructed without the use of technology that captures and stores their carbon emissions. The British government also changed rules to encourage the biomass industry and announced that the first nuclear power station is expected to be built by 2018.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Scientists, government agencies and ski resorts have been “seeding” clouds over land for more than half a century with silver iodide or dry ice to produce more rain or snow. Now controversial moves are afoot in Silicon Valley to test the practicality of seeding clouds over the ocean to combat global warming.

The concept—described previously on NEXT100—is akin to Energy Secretary Chu’s favorite idea to paint roofs and pavement white so they reflect the sun’s rays and cool the earth. Only this scheme would effectively paint the skies white over the ocean.

As first proposed by British meteorologist John Latham, fleets of special oceangoing ships would spew fine drops of seawater into the atmosphere, creating nuclei around which white clouds would form.

According to Latham, if these clouds reflected just 1.7 percent of incoming sunlight, the greenhouse effect would be offset for many years, giving the world time to find a more permanent solution.

A renowned Stanford-based climate scientist, Ken Caldeira, told me he thinks enough of the idea to give it a serious research boost. Caldeira and a colleague, who administer a chunk of research money donated by Bill Gates for the study of climate risks and “geoengineering,” recently donated $300,000 to a team led by Armand Neukermans, a serial technology entrepreneur and “Silicon Valley Inventor of the Year” in 2001, to test a novel design for a nozzle that won’t get gummed up by impurities in the ocean.

Neukermans knows a thing or two about fine nozzles, having managed HP Labs, which helped develop the technology in the company’s ink-jet printers.

The grant has aroused great controversy among groups opposed to global climate engineering, who fear that reckless scientists, mad billionaires or rogue regimes will destabilize the earth’s environment with their experiments.

Warns another Stanford energy policy expert, David Victor, "A lone Greenfinger, self-appointed protector of the planet and working with a small fraction of the Gates bank account could force a lot of geoengineering on his own."

But Caldeira emphasizes that he's only funding lab experiments, and believes field tests should await the “development of appropriate governance structures.”

What he hopes to settle in the lab is the question of whether spray technology can work at all in a harsh ocean environment. If not, he says, “all the attention to climate issues might be irrelevant.”

Caldeira just published a paper with two colleagues in Climate Dynamics, which suggests that ocean cloud seeding, unlike some other geoengineering proposals, might have the beneficial effect of increasing rainfall over land rather than causing droughts.

In fact, Caldeira speculates that local cloud seeding off the coast of Southern and Baja California might cool the Southwestern United States and prevent worsening droughts.

Caldeira cautions that his computer model is subject to error and, in any case, cloud seeding is no magic bullet. For one thing, even if it counteracts global warming, it will still leave the oceans more acidic as CO2 levels continue to rise. And if the atmosphere is pumped full of greenhouse gases, any breakdown of in cloud seeding could lead to quick and catastrophic warming. 

Still, he says carefully, the idea “merits further investigation.” Who knows, between white roofs and white clouds, maybe we'll buy enough time for cooler heads to prevail in the critical climate policy debate. 

Posted by: Kory Raftery

Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

United Nations officials believe a changing climate is to blame for massive food shortfall and looming famine in Africa's Sahel region. A UN representative is now requesting aid to help the region deal with multi-year droughts. Area harvests are failing, leading to rapidly rising food costs and diminishing incomes for millions of families. Long time ranchers and farmers are selling everything they have, and the region may not be able to recover for decades. The last major drought to hit the area stretched from 1972 to 1984, killing more than 100,000 people and putting 250,000 on international food aid for several years.

The heat is on in Eastern Europe and the former Russia. Recent reports say few there have air conditioning and millions are suffering due to record breaking heat. Many are drinking alcohol and taking ill-advised swims in the Moscow River. Officials report that nearly 1700 people in Moscow have drowned in June and July alone. Russian crops are taking a beating from the heat wave, with millions of acres of Russian wheat being destroyed. Wildfires are also taking their toll on the country. Forest fires have recently destroyed roughly 944,000 acres.

A group of climate scientists made their way into the news last year after leaked emails led to accusations that they cooked the books in an effort to prove that human activity is causing global warming. Since then, five separate independent investigations have cleared the scientists but the exonerations aren’t generating the same buzz as the scandal the media dubbed “Climategate,” and many fear the damage has already been done by helping opponents block global warming legislation.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

One of the hottest issues on the California ballot this November is Proposition 23, an initiative to delay implementation of the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, or AB 32. That law mandates a rollback of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Opponents of AB 32 call it a job killer and say California can’t afford it. But more than 100 economists say otherwise in a newly released open letter sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Its title: “The Most Expensive Thing California Can Do is Nothing.”

Acknowledging the “daunting challenges” posed by the economic recession and the state’s high unemployment rate, the 118 signers declare that “Delaying action now and waiting for the future before initiating accelerated action to reduce global warming gases will be more costly than initiating action now. Acting now is more likely to limit further environmental degradation, lower the cost of mitigation, and spur innovation in renewable energy and conservation technologies.”

And by reducing the burning of dirty fossil fuels, they add, “policies that reduce global warming pollution are likely to provide immediate benefits to the health and welfare of residents by reducing local pollutants.”

Signers include Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow at Stanford University; Dallas Burtraw, a widely published expert at Resources for the Future in Washington D.C., and Severin Borenstein at the University of California’s Haas School of Business, one of the state’s leading energy economists.

Speaking to NEXT100, Borenstein said both sides of the AB 32 debate have overblown its impact on California jobs. The real importance of the law, he maintained, is to provide impetus for national action on climate change and ultimately for an international agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

A spokesperson for the Prop. 23 campaign, Anita Mangels, took issue with the economists. “"There may be some of the benefits in the long run," she said. "But in the beginning and in the interim, there is going to be a lot of collateral damage along the way."

But some well-publicized studies warning of big job losses from AB 32 haven’t fared well under close academic review. If the California Air Resources Board—which has authority to implement AB 32—pays close attention to achieving the law’s goals most cost-effectively, the impact should be manageable and the state should be well positioned to for growth in clean-tech industries. 

If governments here and across the globe do nothing, on the other hand, the economic losses to California alone will likely run tens of billions of dollars a year, according to one study at the University of California.

That’s why support for AB 32 is coming not only from economists, but from Gov. Schwarzenegger, former Secretary of Treasury (and State) George Shultz, many business groups across the state and, yes, PG&E.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

At the end of the day, the color that saves the environment may not be green, but white.

Last year, at a brainstorming symposium of Nobel laureates in London, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu recommended dealing with the world’s climate crisis by painting “white roofs everywhere.” (See update below.)

The idea—first explored by his colleagues at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory—would reflect enough of the sun’s energy back into space from white roofs and pavement to “be the equivalent of . . . reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars in the world [for] 11 years,” he said.

Now a Peruvian inventor is taking the idea to the next level—he wants to save Peru’s shrinking Andean glaciers by painting them white, too.

The visionary Eduardo Gold was one of 26 winners of a World Bank competition to honor the best “Ideas to Save the Planet” with seed grants of up to $200,000.

Even before the money comes through, he’s enlisted men from the village of Licapa to ascend the slopes of Chalon Sombrero, a peak 15,600 feet high west of Ayacucho, to splash the rocks with a native formula for whitewash (lime, egg white and water).

Gold said his aim is to increase the mountains surface reflectivity to decrease microclimate temperatures and reverse glacial melting. His other goal is to have the project qualify for carbon credits in order to finance future initiatives.

The locals are happy to help paint their mountain, since their water supply and pasture for their livestock depend on restoring the glacier.

“When I was around 15-20 years old, Chalon Sombrero was a big glacier, all white, then little by little it started to melt," said one supporter. “Forty years on and the river's never been lower, the nights are very cold and the days are unbearably hot. It wasn't like this when I was growing up... it was always bearable. So we're happy to see this project to paint the mountain.”

The World Bank reported last year that more than a fifth of Peru’s glaciers have melted just in the past 30 years.

Update: Energy Secretary Chu today announced a series of initiatives "to more broadly implement cool roof technologies on DOE facilities and buildings across the federal government. Cool roofs use lighter-colored roofing surfaces or special coatings to reflect more of the sun's heat, helping improve building efficiency by reducing cooling costs and offsetting carbon emissions."