Nancy Jackson: Notes from the Governor’s Conference - and the global picture on climate change action
November 19, 2008
Over the last year in Kansas, I have heard one sentiment again and again: Climate change is a global problem – it requires a global response.
Well, reporting from the Governors’ Global Climate Summit, I have great news: the globe is responding!
Checking in to the conference, I was handed a translation headset. Next to me, someone asked, “Do I really need this?” To which the cheerful response came: “Do you speak Mandarin, Hindi, Portuguese, Spanish, and Bahasa Indonesia?” We did not – we took the headsets.
Here to discuss goals (they all have them!), programs (ditto), successes and lessons from their efforts are governors from the fastest-developing nations in the world, including Mexico, Brazil, India, Indonesia – all of whom are dramatically less prosperous than the United States and are acting decisively to manage their climate risk.
Also here are Ministers of Environment from Canadian provinces, numerous representatives of the European Union and, crucially, the Director General, Department of Climate Change, National Development Reform Commission from the People’s Republic of China.
Food for thought:
China: 600 million Chinese are expected to move from the countryside to cities by 2030. Two times the entire U.S. population will need new places to live and work in a mere twenty years. So, China is devising and finding ways to enforce energy efficient building standards, to build efficient mass transportation and further lower vehicle carbon intensity (already significantly lower than the U.S.), to dramatically increase the efficiency of their traditional power generation and add massive new renewable capacity. They have begun a massive national ghg inventory so that they can measure their reductions.
Mexico: Mexico’s voluntary registry of greenhouse gases covers fourteen industries and 80% of emissions. Soon greenhouse gases will be added to the mandatory Toxic Release Registry. Mexico has a National Special Plan for Climate Change, and the President has made climate action a priority. Mexico’s representative here said “We can achieve lower carbon intensity very soon, very cost effectively.”
President-elect Obama: in a video made for this conference, said “My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process.” He called for a national cap-and-trade system that will “establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80% by 2050.” His closing: “I promise you this: When I am president, any governor who’s willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that’s willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that’s willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America.”
Kansans, have no fear of acting alone. Put to rest your worries about industry migrating to countries who are not managing their carbon risk – there will soon be virtually nowhere to go.
Here, amid unfamiliar languages and determined leaders, I have witnessed the dawn of a new day. We’ll see it soon in Kansas. This day inspires new thinking, real innovation, and cheerful determination – and it ushers in a new, sustained prosperity.
Henry Ford – a good, practical, visionary Midwesterner – is fabled to have said, “If I had asked the people what they wanted, they would have said they wanted a faster horse.”
Let’s embrace a new vision and, together, let’s get to work!
Pres. Elect Obama speaks on climate change via video at governors’ conference yesterday
November 19, 2008
We can safely say that the following represents quite a shift in the federal position on climate change. Pres. Elect Obama spoke yesterday via video to a governors conference convened by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Analysis of the speech, reprinted in full from the NYTimes:
Obama Affirms Climate Change Goals
By JOHN M. BRODER
President-elect Barack Obama, in strongly-worded remarks to a gathering of governors and foreign officials on Tuesday, said he had no intention of softening or delaying his aggressive targets for reducing emissions that cause the warming of the planet.
Speaking by video to a climate conference in Los Angeles, Mr. Obama repeated his campaign vow to reduce climate-altering carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent by 2050, and invest $150 billion in new energy-saving technologies.
“Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all,” Mr. Obama said. “Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response.”
Some industry leaders and members of Congress have suggested that Mr. Obama’s climate proposal would impose too great a cost on an already-stressed economy — having the same effects as a tax on coal, oil and natural gas — and should await the end of the current downturn. A bill similar to Mr. Obama’s plan failed to clear the Senate earlier this year, largely because of concerns about its impact on the economy.
Mr. Obama rejected that view, saying that his plan would reduce oil imports, create jobs in energy conservation and renewable sources of energy, and reverse the warming of the atmosphere.
“My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process,” Mr. Obama said.
State officials and environmental advocates were cheered that Mr. Obama choose to address climate change as only the second major policy area he has discussed as president-elect. In a press conference and television interview last week he said that his first priority as president will be to revitalize the economy.
The bipartisan summit meeting was convened by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor of California, who has been a leader in state efforts to regulate greenhouse gases, even when it meant confronting the Bush administration over its more hesitant approach. Attendees included the governors of Illinois, Florida, Wisconsin and Kansas, who have also been in the forefront of actions at the state level to act in the absence of a national climate change plan. Officials from 22 other states, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Brazil, China, India and Indonesia, as well as United Nations aides and environmentalists, also are taking part in the two-day meeting.
Mr. Schwarzenegger announced the meeting in September in part to signal to Washington and the two presidential candidates that the states were serious about moving forward with climate legislation with or without Washington’s blessing.
California enacted a sweeping climate bill in 2007 that would have, among other things, imposed strict mileage and emissions standards on all cars and trucks sold in the state. More than a dozen other states adopted the standards, but they were struck down by the Bush administration last December on the ground that the states did not have the legal authority to regulate greenhouse gases.
“When California passed its global warming law two years ago, we were out there on an island,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said in opening the conference, “so we started forming partnerships everywhere we could.”
Mr. Obama said that although he would not attend a U.N.-sponsored meeting on climate change next month, he has asked members of Congress who are going to report back to him on what the United States can do to reassert leadership on global climate policy.
He also told the state officials: “When I am president, any governor who’s willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that’s willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that’s willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America.”
Governor Jim Doyle, Democrat of Wisconsin, said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles that he had been frustrated by what he said was the Bush administration’s timid approach to climate issues. And he said that despite the current economic crisis, it was important to begin long-term efforts to address global warming.
“I think we all wish the economy was a lot better, but I feel very strongly that we can’t back away from progress we’ve made on really important things like climate change,” Mr. Doyle said. “I’m looking forward to having a federal government and a president who will provide real leadership and bring the United States into the world on this issue.”
If I have a moment I might type up my notes from this conference as well - but in the meantime here’s Chris Green’s coverage of the event from Harris News. (Reprinted in full.)
Experts discuss climate change’s effects on agriculture
MANHATTAN — For Kansas farmers and ranchers, global climate change represents both a threat to their livelihoods and a financial opportunity.
That’s according to a series of experts speaking Tuesday at Kansas State University during a special session for K-State Research and Extension’s annual conference.
“The climate is changing,” said Chuck Rice, a soil microbiologist and professor in the K-State Department of Agronomy. “The question is, ‘how can we adapt?’ And ‘how we can mitigate it?’”
The build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from human activities would lengthen the state’s growing season, said Johannes Feddema, a professor in the University of Kansas geography department.
While some might see that as potential benefit, it’s one that comes with a number of costly downsides. said Feddema, who, along with Rice, was a member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Global warming, he said, would also result in decreased rainfall amounts over the next 30 to 70 years, particularly in western Kansas, produce a more erratic climate and generate more intense events of severe weather.
Jerry Hatfield, laboratory director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service National Soil Tilth Lab in Ames, Iowa, acknowledged that plants love CO2.
But he said any benefits of increased carbon dioxide would be offset by increased climate variability and temperature increases, which would actually reduce the yield of crops.
That’s because higher temperatures and a more unstable climate could keep crops from hitting optimal temperatures during the reproductive phase of their growth, Hatfield said. Global warming will also make it harder to deal with weeds, insects and disease.
However, crops aren’t the only segment of agriculture that will be affected by global warming, Hatfield said. Livestock could also face increased stress from rising temperatures, including reduced conception rates.
“Animals are one of the forgotten pieces of the puzzle,” Hatfield said.
In the coming years, climate changes will force farmers and ranchers to adjust their practices, he said, including increasing the water efficiency of crops and providing more water and shelter for animals to survive more extreme bouts of weather.
But one option the nation has in trying to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could represent an economic opportunity for farmers.
Several speakers said the use of no-till agriculture represents an immediate and cheap way of sequestering carbon under ground while more advanced and expensive methods could be developed.
In fact, Kansas farmers and ranchers can already earn credit for using no-till or strip-till farming practices or by planting new grassland, said Steve Swaffar, the director of natural resources division at Kansas Farm Bureau.
Those credits can be sold by aggregators to companies, such as Ford Motor Co. or Motorola, that are voluntarily trying to decrease their carbon footprints through a pilot program, he said.
The price for offsetting a metric ton of carbon has fluctuated widely on the Chicago Climate Exchange, from a recent high $7.50 to down below $1.50 this month. But Swaffar said that with a $4 carbon price, a farmer with 250 acres in no-till could make $3,024 or $12.10 over the life of a five- to six-year contract for participating.
If the price of carbon hits $8, $10 or higher, Swaffar said farmers would be looking at earning significantly more sums of money.
But others cautioned that the use of no-till agriculture to capture CO2 wouldn’t be widespread unless there’s a system mandating its use. That would involve a national effort to limit carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade system, proposals for which speakers expected to soon re-emerge in the U.S. Congress.
But Ray Hammarlund, director of the energy programs division at the Kansas Corporation Commission, said some critics don’t think agricultural offsets should be a part of such a system.
That’s because sequestering carbon by not disturbing soil is considered a temporary mitigation measure, he said. The soil becomes saturated with carbon in just a couple decades and some doubters question giving farmers credit for something some may already be doing.
Supporters of no-till and other agricultural ways of remedying CO2 will have to fight to ensure that it becomes an option as part of a cap-and-trade system, Hammarlund said.
“Do not assume for a minute that agricultural offsets are a done deal,” Hammarlund said.
Plus, Hammerlund said that even though agriculture’s own carbon footprint would be difficult to measure or limit, some farmers he talks to are wary of any system that might pay for them to make up for others’ carbon emission.
They fear that such a initiative might also charge them for the greenhouse gases they produce while farming, he said.
Obama would classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant
October 16, 2008
Ganked from Climateer, this Bloomberg article (reprinted pretty much in full):
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — Barack Obama will classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant that can be regulated should he win the presidential election on Nov. 4, opening the way for new rules on greenhouse gas emissions.
The Democratic senator from Illinois will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the 1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers, his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an interview. President George W. Bush declined to curb CO2 emissions under the law even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the government may do so.
If elected, Obama would be the first president to group emissions blamed for global warming into a category of pollutants that includes lead and carbon monoxide. Obama’s rival in the presidential race, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, has not said how he would treat CO2 under the act.
Obama “would initiate those rulemakings,” Grumet said in an Oct. 6 interview in Boston. “He’s not going to insert political judgments to interrupt the recommendations of the scientific efforts.”
Placing heat-trapping pollutants in the same category as ozone may lead to caps on power-plant emissions and force utilities to use the most expensive systems to curb pollution. The move may halt construction plans on as many as half of the 130 proposed new U.S. coal plants.
The president may take action on new rules immediately upon taking office, said David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel for the Sierra Club. Environment groups including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council will issue a regulatory agenda for the next president that calls for limits on CO2 from industry.
`Hit Ground Running’
“This is what they should do to hit the ground running,” Bookbinder said in an Oct. 10 telephone interview.
Separately, Congress is debating legislation to create an emissions market to address global warming, a solution endorsed by both candidates and utilities such as American Electric Power Co., the biggest U.S. producer of electricity from coal. Congress failed to pass a global-warming bill in June and how long it may take lawmakers to agree on a plan isn’t known.
“We need federal legislation to deal with greenhouse-gas emissions,” said Vicki Arroyo, general counsel for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia. “In the meantime, there is this vacuum. People are eager to get started on this.”
An Obama victory would help clear the deadlock in talks on an international agreement to slow global warming, Rajendra Pachauri, head of a United Nation panel of climate-change scientists, said today in Berlin. Negotiators from almost 200 countries will meet in December in Poznan, Poland, to discuss ways to limit CO2.
`Back in the Game’
“The U.S. has to move quickly domestically so we can get back in the game internationally,” Grumet said. “We cannot have a meaningful impact in the international discussion until we develop a meaningful domestic consensus. So he’ll move quickly.”
Burning coal to generate electricity produces more than a third of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions and half the U.S. power supply, according to the Energy Department. Every hour, fossil-fuel combustion generates 3.5 million tons of emissions worldwide, helping create a warming effect that “already threatens our climate,” the Paris-based International Energy Agency said.
The EPA under Bush fought the notion that the Clean Air Act applies to CO2 all the way to the Supreme Court. The law has been used successfully to regulate six pollutants, including sulfur dioxide and ozone. Regulation under the act “could result in an unprecedented expansion of EPA authority,” EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said in July. The law “is the wrong tool for the job.”
Proponents of regulation are hoping for better results under a new president. Obama adviser Grumet, executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, said if Congress hasn’t acted in 18 months, about the time it would take to draft rules, the president should.
EPA Authority
“The EPA is obligated to move forward in the absence of Congressional action,” Grumet said. “If there’s no action by Congress in those 18 months, I think any responsible president would want to have the regulatory approach.”
States where coal-fired plants may be affected include Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Montana, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia and Florida.
The alternative, a national cap-and-trade program created by Congress, offers industry more options, said Bruce Braine, a vice president at Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric. The world’s largest cap-and-trade plan for greenhouse gases opened in Europe in 2005.
Under a cap-and-trade program, polluters may keep less- efficient plants running if they offset those emissions with investments in projects that lower pollution, such as wind-energy turbines or systems that destroy methane gas from landfills.
McCain `Not a Fan’
“Those options may still allow me to build new efficient power plants that might not meet a higher standard,” Braine said in an Oct. 9 interview. “That might be a more cost-effective way to approach it.”
McCain hasn’t said how he would approach CO2 regulation under the Clean Air Act. McCain adviser and former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey said Oct. 6 that new rules may conflict with Congressional efforts. Policy adviser Rebecca Jensen Tallent said in August that McCain prefers a bill debated by Congress rather than regulations “established through one agency where one secretary is getting to make a lot of decisions.”
“He is not as big of a fan of standards-based approaches,” Arroyo said. “The Supreme Court thinks it’s clear that there is greenhouse-gas authority under the Clean Air Act. To take that off the table probably wouldn’t be very wise.”
More Efficient Technologies
How new regulations would affect the proposed U.S. coal plants depends on how they are written, said Bill Fang, climate issue director for the Edison Electric Institute, a Washington-based lobbying group for utilities. About half of the proposed plants plan to use technologies that are 20 percent more efficient than conventional coal burners.
“Several states have denied the applicability of the Clean Air Act to coal permits,” Fang said in an Oct. 10 interview.
In June, a court in Georgia stopped construction of the 1,200- megawatt Longleaf power plant, a $2 billion project, because developer Dynegy Inc. failed to consider cleaner technology.
An appeals board within the EPA is considering a challenge from the Sierra Club to Deseret Power Electric Cooperative’s air permit for its 110-megawatt Bonanza coal plant in Utah on grounds that it failed to require controls on CO2. One megawatt is enough to power about 800 typical U.S. homes.
“Industry has woken up to the fact that a new progressive administration could move quickly to make the United States a leader rather than a laggard,” said Bruce Nilles, director of the group’s national coal campaign.
Bored on a Friday? Try some coal drama, then check out the Consumer Reports project on industry front groups, and IPCC for the rest of us
October 10, 2008
Coal drama. Utah has its own coal controversy going, this over a proposed 270 MW coal plant (Salt Lake Tribune). Only theirs is mixed up with a ballot initiative, which I am sure makes it even more interesting. At any rate, the utility in question has had the air permit for more than four years, but it went to the courts and is still there.
Coal, climate change and economic drama. Let’s review. Credit markets are drying up - and this affects construction of all energy facilities, be they wind, coal, natural gas, whatever. And what credit there is, is not going to go to ventures that are considered risky.
So. Is building fossil fuel generation increasingly considered risky and/or high-cost, given expected international and national carbon regulation?
For your answer, read this post from Climate Intel. Quotable:
This week, amidst the dislocations flowing from the global financial markets, lawmakers in the US and EU advanced legislation requiring geological sequestration of CO2 emissions from future coal-fired plants. It remains to be seen how the unfolding economic landscape may affect the viability of any significant movement on new climate change legislation. For the moment, however, these proposals are signs that some lawmakers realize that implementing a comprehensive climate change framework in five (or twenty-five) years means laying the legal and regulatory foundation now.
If you watch TV, you’ve seen the ads... Ever wonder who is paying for all the issue advertising - like the bright shiny faces telling you how great natural resource use X or Y is?
Answer: Many of them are industry front groups. Consumer Reports has joined together with the Center for Media and Democracy to create a neat-o website, Frontgroups.org. It’s very interesting. Many of the names were strangely familiar.
Have you always wanted to read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, but…. well, but? Basically, there is now a dummies version - a new book called Dire Predictions. (As a dummy myself, I find this exciting). If you need some light reading to distract yourself from the stock market, I highly recommend it.
Everyone have a great weekend!
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
NASA scientist James Hansen speaks at KS Wind/ Renewables conference; KS Chamber speaker day before has different take on climate change
September 25, 2008
Reprinted in full from Lawrence Journal-World:
By Scott Rothschild
NASA climate expert warns of dire results of global warming
Experts in green energy hit the state capitol on Tuesday. The keynote speaker was a climate expert from NASA.
As sea level rises because of melting ice sheets like this one in Greenland, so do the risks to the more than 1 billion people living in costal areas around the world, warns James Hansen, of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
As sea level rises because of melting ice sheets like this one in Greenland, so do the risks to the more than 1 billion people living in costal areas around the world, warns James Hansen, of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
TOPEKA — One day after a scientist told Kansas leaders not to worry about global warming, one of the leading experts on climate change stated Tuesday that if carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase it will eventually mean the end of life.
“If we don’t get this thing under control we are going to destroy the creation,” said James Hansen, who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and was one of the first scientists to raise the alarm about global warming in the 1980s.
Speaking to more than 500 people at the Kansas Wind and Renewable Energy Conference, Hansen called for policymakers to phase out coal-burning power plants by 2030. This will reduce carbon dioxide emissions that he said have already caused serious and possibly irreversible damage to Earth.
“We do have a planetary emergency,” Hansen said.
Hansen said some scientists claim global warming is part of a natural climate cycle by pointing to past eras of higher temperatures.
But Hansen said the CO2 increases over the past few decades have been caused by humans burning fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas. Along with the increase in CO2 have come dramatic temperature shifts and environmental distress signals, such as the melting of glaciers, rising sea levels and expansion of deserts, he said.
“Humans are now controlling the mechanisms for climate change,” he said.
He said many energy companies try to confuse the issue in the public’s mind and are successful because some of the environmental changes take decades to detect. He accused those fossil fuel companies of being guilty of “crimes against humanity and nature.”
Hansen said the increase of CO2 must and can be reversed. In addition to removing coal-burning electric plants, he called on increased use of renewable energy and nuclear energy.
On Monday, research scientist Roy Spencer, who wrote “Climate Confusion,” said at a Kansas Chamber of Commerce event that burning fossil fuels wasn’t the cause of climate change, and that even if it was, the environment would be able to absorb the changes.
But Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson, who introduced Hansen at the renewable energy conference, said, “The overwhelming amount of scientific evidence is that climate change is real and we have reached a point that if we don’t do something about it, future generations will be adversely affected.”
Parkinson said businesses that deal with climate change will be the ones that thrive.
“Companies that will survive the next 10, 20, 30, 50 years are companies that recognize these changes are taking place and will take advantage of them,” he said.
Hansen called on the United States to take the lead in reducing CO2 emissions, noting that it has produced the most. He said at some point humans will have to do without fossil fuels because there is a finite supply.
“Why not do it a little sooner and save the planet in the meantime?” he said.
Hansen also praised Kansas politicians who earlier this year blocked the construction of two coal-fired power plants in western Kansas.
“At least you have leaders who are trying to do the right thing,” he said.
The previous day scientist Roy Spencer spoke to the Kansas Chamber of Commerce. Spencer’s take on climate change is different than Hansen’s. Also reprinted from the LJW:
Kansas Chamber of Commerce lends ear to scientist who disputes man-made global warming
By Scott Rothschild
Roy Spencer, a climate change research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville, disputes that human-introduced elements such as carbon dioxide are to blame for global climate change. Spencer spoke on Monday, Sept. 22, 2008 to legislative leaders, lobbyists and leading business officials at the Kansas Chamber of Commerce business and energy summit in Topeka.
TOPEKA — Global warming? So what.
That was the message Monday from research scientist and best-selling author Roy Spencer to legislative leaders, lobbyists and leading business officials at the Kansas Chamber of Commerce business and energy summit.
Spencer is a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and author of “Climate Confusion.”
Spencer doesn’t deny that Earth is warming, but he attributes that to natural climate cycles and not to the increase in greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.
“There are many of us skeptical of mankind being the cause of global warming,” he said.
And, he said, increased carbon dioxide is not a bad thing, and can either be absorbed by the environment or have positive effects, such as increased agricultural production.
Most scientists disagree with Spencer’s findings. They believe increases in carbon dioxide from human burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, are causing climate changes that, if left unchecked, will result in catastrophic flooding, storms, famine and changes in the environment.
But Spencer said nature is always changing in ways that produce winners and losers. Even if mankind is affecting the environment, he asked, “Why is it wrong for the climate to be different because we are here?”
During a question-and-answer session, Stormont-Vail HealthCare president and chief executive officer Maynard Oliverius noted that carbon dioxide emissions have skyrocketed in recent years. “So what?” Spencer said. “What’s your point?”
Spencer also advised the several hundred people in attendance not to trust the mainstream media on the topic of carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.
“You will be misled on what is out there in the scientific literature,” he said.
Nancy Jackson, executive director of the Climate and Energy Project at the Land Institute in Salina, attended the forum and said Spencer’s talk supported the position of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, which has urged the construction of two coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas. The proposed project has been rejected by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius because of concerns about carbon dioxide emissions.
“I would clearly prefer that a forum on energy and business in the state of Kansas include diverse viewpoints,” Jackson said. “I’m hopeful we will see that in the future.”
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
New report shows that $100 billion investment from federal government could create 2 million clean energy jobs (DOE/EERE News). (Let me see, the Fed just loaned AIG $85 billion, right? This simple little country girl - and taxpayer - is getting a bit confused on the meaning of the term “free market economy.”) Quotable:
A new report from the non-partisan Center for American Progress concludes that a $100 billion federal investment in clean energy technologies over the next 2 years would yield 2 million new U.S. jobs, cutting the unemployment rate by 1.3%, while putting the nation on a path toward a low-carbon economy. The report, prepared by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, proposes $50 billion in tax credits for energy efficiency retrofits and renewable energy systems; $46 billion in direct government spending for public building retrofits, mass transit, freight rail, smart electrical grid systems, and renewable energy systems; and $4 billion for federal loan guarantees to help finance building retrofits and renewable energy projects.
If $100 billion sounds like an unreasonable number, consider the fact that this year’s economic stimulus package amounted to more than $152 billion, of which about $100 billion was provided to taxpayers in the form of rebate checks. The Center for American Progress report concludes that clean energy investments would yield about 300,000 more jobs than if the same funds were distributed among U.S. taxpayers. The clean energy investments would also have the added benefits of lower home energy bills and reduced prices for non-renewable energy sources, thanks to the reduced consumption of those energy sources.
Major investors are pressuring the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require oil and gas companies to reveal the environmental risks of their supplies (Reuters). A concept also known as “carbon liability.” Quotable: “A group of 19 environmental, investor and non-profit groups want the regulators, under new proposals, to ask that oil and gas companies disclose reported reserves that have higher than average greenhouse gas emissions associated with their extraction, production and combustion.”
Trying to make coal clean (Financial Times). Ie, trying to build coal plants that can remove the carbon dioxide from their emissions. Yes, I’ve seen the pretty commercials, too, but in fact that technology is not yet workable on an applied market scale. Quotable:
Burning coal is the dirtiest, most old-fashioned way to produce electricity in the energy industry today. However, in the coming years many governments and energy companies are hoping to reinvent coal as a cleaner, more modern form of energy in the coming years, as they try to reconcile energy security with the need to halt climate change.
Pickens and water (Ft. Worth Star Telegram). Found this originally on Climateer. Pickens has announced that he is suspending his plans for the water pipeline he had planned to mine the Ogallala (selling the water to Dallas et al). He wants to focus on the wind and transmission plan instead.
If that plan does involve eminent domain, though, it will be interesting to keep an eye on how water rights might be treated under that arrangement.
Recent editorial in USAToday about how scarce water resources of the Great Plains need better protection. Written by a native western Kansan, the child of dryland winter wheat farmers (it sounds like). Quotable:
(Pickens) says little of his intention to market fossil water. That’s what conservationists call finite supplies of water dating to prehistoric times. The Ogallala Aquifer is the largest such supply on our continent. It underlies the Plains all the way from Pickens’ North Texas to South Dakota. Thanks to help he obtained from the Texas Legislature, he has stacked the board of a tiny water district. By the power of eminent domain, also granted him by the Legislature, he can force landowners to sell him rights to a 320-mile strip of land connecting him to Dallas. He will pipe the water down the same corridor he plans to use transmitting his wind power.
Water is life, and the rate we’re squandering it outpaces even our flagrant waste of oil. This is nowhere so true as on the Great Plains, where withdrawals from the Ogallala threaten to close down most irrigation farming before the end of this century.
Found a new blog that I love - Windpower Law. They are from New York but I am sure no open-minded Kansan will hold that against them, right? Correct. Scroll down the right side bar to get some neat links and resources. Great overview of all sorts of wind law, from wind farms to small wind.
And yes, New York does have wind farms. Upstate New York is kind of like - like a giant hand took Kansas, squeezed it up into more bumps and ridges, took away the horizon line, and let lots of trees grow. Lots. Fairly rural place, broken up by a few major population centers. Not even remotely like NYC. Lots of dairy farms. (At least that’s how I remember it from 20 years ago.)
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
NYTimes - Xcel Energy agrees to disclose risks of global warming to investors, including the implications of building more coal-fired generation
August 28, 2008
Xcel Energy agrees to warn investors about the risks of global warming (NYTimes).
ALBANY — One of the country’s largest builders of coal-fired power plants will give investors detailed warnings about the risks that global warming poses to its business under a deal with New York’s attorney general.
The agreement Wednesday between the attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, and the company, Xcel Energy of Minneapolis, is the first of its kind in the country. It could open a broad new front in efforts by environmental groups to pressure the energy industry into reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
Until now, advocates have largely relied on shareholder resolutions as a way of pushing the companies to reduce their carbon dioxide output and invest more aggressively in renewable energy sources like wind or solar power.
That effort has picked up pace, according to Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental groups, with dozens of shareholder resolutions filed during the 2008 financial reporting season.
“This really takes it another step, by making it a settlement agreement that should have an impact across the industry,” said Dan Bakal, the director of electric power programs at Ceres.
Mr. Cuomo subpoenaed Xcel and four other companies last September, seeking to determine whether their efforts to build new coal-fired power plants posed risks not disclosed to investors, like future lawsuits or higher costs to comply with possible regulations restricting carbon emissions.
The attorney general’s office is still negotiating with the four other companies — the AES Corporation, Dominion, Dynegy and Peabody Energy. But Mr. Cuomo hopes that the agreement will help persuade other companies to follow in the footsteps of Xcel, which supplies natural gas and electricity to customers in eight states. Among utilities, Xcel is one of the nation’s largest producers of greenhouse gases and a major provider of wind energy.
Many coal-fired power plants have been proposed or are under construction across the country and environmental advocates have made it a priority to reduce their impact.
“This landmark agreement sets a new industrywide precedent that will force companies to disclose the true financial risks that climate change poses to their investors,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. “Coal-fired power plants can significantly contribute to global warming, and investors have the right to know all the associated risks.”
The agreement represents another novel use by Mr. Cuomo of the Martin Act, a powerful tool that allows the attorney general to bring criminal as well as civil charges. Mr. Cuomo’s predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, used the law to vastly expand the office’s investigations of suspected Wall Street malfeasance.
Now Mr. Cuomo has turned it into a de facto form of environmental enforcement, too. For energy companies, including those based far from New York, he is able to claim jurisdiction because they issue securities on Wall Street.
The agreement with Xcel requires the company to analyze the likely effects on its business of current and future legislation or regulations in the states and countries where it operates and to disclose that information in its investor filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Congress and many states are considering global warming legislation. Ten states stretching from Maryland to Maine, including New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, have struck a deal to cap emissions and allow trading of pollution allotments among producers.
Under the agreement with Mr. Cuomo, Xcel will disclose the financial risks of lawsuits and of federal or state court decisions that would affect its business. The company will also analyze and disclosed the “material financial risks” to itself associated with global warming, like drought — coal plants are prodigious users of water — or rising sea levels.In a statement, the chairman of Xcel, Richard C. Kelly, said the company had already voluntarily reduced carbon emissions and planned to continue to do so.
“We previously provided detailed information concerning the expected impact of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions regulations on our operations, and under this agreement we will make even more detailed disclosures,” Mr. Kelly said. “This agreement will enhance our already aggressive efforts to be responsible environmental stewards.”
Xcel officials said their reductions of greenhouse gases had totaled 18 million tons since 2003. They added that the company planned to build an additional 6,000 megawatts of renewable energy generation by the end of the next decade.
Justin McCann, an energy analyst at Standard & Poor’s, said that the company had included more detailed information on climate change risks in its most recent filing, since Mr. Cuomo’s investigation began. But the new agreement will require even more disclosure, he said, and probably encourage other companies to follow suit.
“Utility lobbies are very strong, but they have read the writing on the wall in terms of greenhouse gas reductions,” Mr. McCann said. “They know it is extremely popular with the public, and so they have wanted to get ahead of the curve, so they can have some input.”
But some of the companies that Mr. Cuomo scrutinized might be less amenable to adopting the new requirements than others. When Mr. Cuomo issued his subpoenas last year, Vic Svec, a spokesman for Peabody Energy, described the attorney general’s inquiry as “outrageous” and suggested that Mr. Cuomo’s use of the Martin Act was a form of legal harassment.
Reached Wednesday, Mr. Svec said: “We’re confident that our disclosures around CO2” — carbon dioxide — “have been and continue to be adequate.”
News Update: protect climate and protect the economy, aesthetics and wind turbines, natural gas discoveries and market shifts
August 27, 2008
Eight scientific organizations ask prez candidates to protect the economy by protecting climate (Reuters). “Eight scientific organizations urged the next U.S. president to help protect the country from climate change by pushing for increased funding for research and forecasting, saying about $2 trillion of U.S. economic output could be hurt by storms, floods and droughts.”
From the WSJ Environmental Capital blog - “Texas Breeze: Landowners Call Wind Turbines Ugly; Court Says Too Bad.” A Texas appeals court “dismissed a suit by landowners upset with a big wind farm built by FPL Energy. Landowners decried the turbines’ noise and their spoiled sunsets—which the court agreed was a pity—but the appeals court couldn’t find grounds to rule against the power company.”
American natural gas production skyrocketing due to new recovery technology (NYTimes).
American natural gas production is rising at a clip not seen in half a century, pushing down prices of the fuel and reversing conventional wisdom that domestic gas fields were in irreversible decline.
The new drilling boom uses advanced technology to release gas trapped in huge shale beds found throughout North America — gas long believed to be out of reach. Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, releasing less of the emissions that cause global warming than coal or oil.
Rising production of natural gas has significant long-range implications for American consumers and businesses. A sustained increase in gas supplies over the next decade could slow the rise of utility bills, obviate the need to import gas and make energy-intensive industries more competitive.
While the recent production increase is indisputable, not everyone is convinced the additional supplies can last for decades…
… Domestic natural gas prices have already plunged 42 percent since early July, an even faster drop in price than oil or most other commodities, in part because the rapid supply growth has begun to influence the market. Price spikes remain possible, of course, but throughout the industry the shale discoveries are causing a shift in thinking about the long-term outlook…
… “Shale is the most significant domestic natural gas find in 50 years,” said Chris Ruppel, an analyst at the institutional brokerage firm Execution, “which means the United States will become gas independent, and more industrially competitive versus Europe for gas-intensive industries such as chemicals, fertilizer, smelting iron and aluminum.”..
… “We see natural gas as potentially a very important transitional fuel, but we can’t use it at the expense of our natural resources,” said Kate Sinding, a senior lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who warned that water-intensive drilling in shale could threaten local water supplies and aquifers…
… With the growth of power generation from natural gas, the Energy Department estimates that gas consumption will increase 3 percent this year and an additional 1.7 percent in 2009. But that is well below expected supply increases.
Such increases carry risks. Some in the gas industry fear that if prices fall too much, producers will pull back on their investments in drilling and development. “If prices drop much more,” said Mr. Johnson of Carrizo Oil and Gas, “producers will slow down or at least not be as aggressive.”
Wind power is a variable resource - meaning, it ebbs and flows over time. There has been a lot of discussion about how to “firm up” the resource, which would make it easier for utilities to depend more and more on wind (instead of having to fill in the gaps with other fuels). One possibility for doing this is compressed air storage (NYTimes). Quotable:
But a New Jersey company plans to announce on Tuesday that it is working on a solution to this perennial problem with wind power: using wind turbines to produce compressed air that can be stored underground or in tanks and released later to power generators during peak hours….
… But the new venture hopes to put wind power generated during off-peak hours to use during peak hours — typically 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. — and especially on hot days.
One of the main challenges to using wind power is that the wind, in general, is unpredictable, which makes it harder for utilities to rely exclusively on it since they prefer to buy energy a day or more in advance.
Abandoned salt mines, BTW, are a great geologic formation for compressed air storage. (Hello, Reno County.)
Horizon Wind Energy opens office in Kansas (MarketWatch). Quotable:
“Today clean energy is at the center of our attention; new technologies and improvements in existing technologies are key to addressing our energy needs and climate change,” said Ken Ripper, Chief Technical Officer, Horizon Wind Energy. “Horizon is proud to do business in the great State of Kansas and applauds the efforts taking place at Cloud County Community College to educate and train the next generation of wind technicians. The school currently has 50 students enrolled and is beginning a web-based program. Horizon has hired some of these students as interns and full-time employees at our Meridian Way Wind Farm and is very pleased with the results.”
New study finds a lot more carbon sequestered in Artic soils - which means a new feedback loop for climate scientists to consider (AP). If the soils defrost, there goes the carbon into the atmosphere, thus creating an exponential warming effect. Quotable:
And according to one commentary on the research, current models of climate change have not taken this extra source of greenhouse gas into account.
Scientists have long known that organic carbon trapped inside a blanket of frozen permafrost covering one fifth of the world’s land mass would, if thawed, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
But until now they simply did not have a good idea of how much carbon is actually locked inside this Arctic freezer.
FYI - relationship between hurricane forecasts and oil and gas prices (Climateer).
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Research Summary: “Economic Impact of Climate Change on Kansas”
August 13, 2008
Summary: From the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) - the economic costs of climate change could run into the billions of dollars, based on case studies of eight states.
For Kansas, losses could exceed $1 billion - in large part due to the impact of warmer temperatures and reduced water supply on agriculture.
In the U.S., state decisionmakers are critical players in climate and energy policy. The costs of climate change will also fall heavily on state and local governments. Such costs are frequently left out of climate change discussions on the federal level.
Title: “Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Kansas”
Original Publication Date: July 2008
File: For .pdf of executive summary, click here. For .pdf of full report, click here.
Major Findings:
- Kansas faces significant costs of inaction on climate change - over $1 billion total, and thousands of jobs.
- According to currently existing climate models, over the next thirty years Kansas faces a two to six degree Celsius rise in temperature
- Precipitation models show that eastern Kansas is growing wetter (10-20% wetter over the past century), and western Kansas is growing drier.
- Much of the national climate discussion focuses on the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and ignores the costs of NOT reducing them.
- The costs of dealing with climate change will fall heavily on state and local goverments, placing huge stresses on their budgets.
The economic results from these changes (all of the figures are in 2007 dollars):
Increasingly scarce water resources (and rising conflict over irrigation and water rights), increased damage from flooding, poorer water quality due to run-off of fertilizers, etc.
- Flooding currently causes $33 million of damage in KS per year. Since 1900, half of the state’s major floods have occurred in the past 27 years. Economic damages have increased due to developments in flood plains.
- Dry land is susceptible to flash flooding. Western KS will become increasingly drier.
- By 2032 increased flooding could cost Kansas agriculture $150 million per year, with an additional $87 million per year in other economic sectors (such as manufacturing and transportation) and over 700 jobs per year.
AGRICULTURE
Crop losses due to extreme weather and invasive species, negative impact on health of livestock, descreasing crop yields for wheat, sorghum, and hay.
- Currently Kansas loses about $871 million per year due to invasive species, or 8% of total market value.
- By 2017, a one percent increase in the persistence of invasive species per year would cause $58 million in damages and a loss of over 400 jobs.
- High summer temperatures will shift crop production northwards, forcing farmers to change crops, irrigation patterns, and planting times.
- In western Kansas, drier growing seasons will require increased irrigation, further straining groundwater resources and increasing operations costs.
- Livestock production will be affected by higher temperatures as well. Increased carbon dioxide levels could improve rangeland productivity in the short term.
- In 2006 the total value of agricultural crops in KS was $3.3 billion. Wheat, sorghum, and hay was 70% of that total. For a nine degree Fahrenheit temperature rise and one percent precipitation decrease (possible for western KS by 2035 under current climate models), the total crop value would decrease by 11% or $290.4 million. Nearly 1,400 jobs would be lost.
HEALTH
Increasing air pollution and ozone leading to increased asthma and respiratory infections, increased disease vectors from insect and rodent populations.
- Direct and indirect costs of asthma treatment already costs Overland Park and Kansas City, KS over $13 million annually.
- Rising temperatures make many diseases more easily transmissible. The transmission season of Dengue fever could increase.
- Increased rainfall (such as is projected for northeastern KS) could lead to increased rodent populations, and disease vectors such as bubonic plague, hantavirus, and leptospirosis.
- No increased risk of malaria transmission was found, and warming may decrease some tick-carried diseases.
EXTREME WEATHER
Increase in the intensity of storms due to increased summer temperatures and a build-up of heat in the atmosphere, and increases in storm damage.
- Over the next ten years, if tornado damage increased by one percent per year, the loss to agriculture would be $2 million and to the building sector, $11 million.
- Hail already causes $46 million per year in property and crop damage in KS.
- The construction sector could benefit from rebuilding efforts, but then this limited work force is not available to build new infrastructure for economic growth.
- Storms also cause loss of life, damage to homes and businesses and infrastructure, costs (some which go beyond dollar values) and are not estimated here.
- The insurance sector will see losses, but will adjust those through raising rates. Paying higher rates will reduce homeowners’ disposable incomes.
TOURISM AND RECREATION
- In 2001, KS fishing and hunting brought in $541 million.
Background:
GENERAL
- Economic impacts of climate change spread across resources and sectors, including water, energy, transportation, public health, and public service, with ripples effects on jobs, wages, and tax revenues - not all of these costs are accounted for in this particular study.
- There are also non-monetary costs not estimated here.
- There is no definitive cost of inaction - climate models are always changing and improving, and new economic models need to be developed to get a better understanding of all the impacts.
- Models are meant to help estimate, manage, and avoid risk. They are projections, not predictions.
- Costs of climate change will be unevenly distributed across the country.
- These costs also do not address the economic impact of sudden and abrupt climate change. Climate models estimate changes that are gradual over time.
- Negative climate impacts will outweigh the benefits for most sectors providing essential goods and services.
- The general impact of climate change on agriculture is still being studied, but it will likely be uncertain. There may be initial economic gains from altered growing conditions, but these will be lost as temperatures continue to rise.
- The effects will be felt regionally - droughts, water shortages, excess precipitation, pests and diseases.
- Electricity demand will probably increase in summer due to increased temperatures
- Electricity may become harder to deliver, due to extreme weather events taking out the grid
- Water supply networks may become compromised
Other related reports:
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Part II of a video from the Everett Tzedek Social Action Project, which completed a four part project on environmental sustainability at the University of Kansas during spring semester 2007.
KU students and the Lawrence community, and some of their thoughts about climate change and a more sustainable lifestyle.
Thanks to Ben Morgan, super-intern, for the video!
Multimedia: KU students try to take on global warming
August 4, 2008
Thanks to CEP super-intern Ben Morgan, we have a host of climate and energy related videos to share. Try this one - Evening of Green - Part I of a two part series.
It was completed by the Everett Tzedek Social Action Project as part of a environmental sustainability project at the University of Kansas during spring semester 2007.
Part II coming your way tomorrow.
If you have ten minutes… climate scientist Dr. James Hansen on why you still get cold years during global warming
August 1, 2008
Check it out. Dice!
Generally a good explanation of the complications in sorting out weather and climate. Also discussion of fossil fuels and the urgency to act on climate change. Plus some transmission in there. Phasing out non-carbon capture coal by 2030. The China question. Etc.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Public is welcome - Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy (KEEP) Advisory Group meeting scheduled for August 5 in Lawrence
July 29, 2008
As per the KEEP website, the next meeting will be Tuesday, August 5, 2008, from 9:00 - 4:00 at the Kansas University Alumni Association in Lawrence, Kansas (1266 Oread Avenue). It will take place in the Buckmiller Room on the second floor. Members of the public are invited to attend.
You will be able to find the agenda and other meeting documentation posted here.
Reminder - KEEP is the group that the Governor appointed this spring to carry out a climate action planning process. The full group (.pdf listing) has already held one introductory meeting. The meeting and the entire KEEP process is being facilitated by the Center for Climate Strategies (CCS), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. KDHE is assisting the process.
Currently, more than 23 other states already have climate action plans. Including Kansas, six more states have the process underway.
The first step in the KEEP process is to get all the climate policy options on the table. That is what is happening now.
Since the first meeting, the technical working groups (also known as TWGs) - Agriculture Forestry & Waste, Cross Cutting Issues, Energy Supply, Residential Commercial & Industrial, Transportation & Land Use - have all held two meetings each, via conference call. Each TWG was responsible for (1) considering climate policy options that other states had implemented, and (2) coming up with more options that would hopefully work for Kansas.
Now, at this full meeting, the KEEP will vote on these catalogs. After they accept/ reject the work of the TWGs, then the second part of the process begins - the TWGs have two more meetings via conference call, and they start narrowing down the policy options for Kansas.
Nancy Jackson, CEP Executive Director, is a member of both the full KEEP and of the Energy Supply TWG. Maril Hazlett is a member of the Cross Cutting Issues TWG.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Climate change could potentially cost Kansas $1 billion
July 25, 2008
Lot of money to gamble with, isn’t it? I still plan on summarizing that CIER report mentioned in the story below, just haven’t gotten to it. I did pull out some of the specific findings in this earlier post.
Reprinted in full from Harris News:
By Sarah Kessinger
Harris News Service
TOPEKA - Kansas will lose agricultural productivity and face higher damage costs in the next century as temperatures rise and storms, including flash floods and tornadoes, intensify.
That was the conclusion of a report on climate change and the economy released Wednesday at the National Conference of State Legislatures annual convention in New Orleans.
The report’s state-specific findings show Kansas with potential economic losses of $1 billion in coming decades as temperatures continue to rise in response to mounting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
“These trends are predicted to continue due to climate change, and climate models predict that changes in temperature and precipitation may be larger if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced,” the report concludes.
In addition to economic loss, legal battles are projected to result from water declines.
“A drier and warmer climate in western Kansas will elevate tension among water rights holders,” it states.
Also, the warmer, more humid atmosphere could exacerbate health issues such as asthma.
The report suggests states work together to confront the problem.
“Since state economies are directly linked to the economies of neighboring states and regions, policymakers may wish to consider both state and regional policies to address climate change,” the report states.
Several Kansas legislators were attending the New Orleans conference. The report was the collaborative work of NCSL and the University of Maryland. It was funded by the Environmental Defense Fund.
Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ administration has begun work, similar to other states, on a climate action plan.
But Republican House leaders have criticized the planning process for relying upon the Center for Climate Strategies, a consultant firm from Pennsylvania that is advising several states.
House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, says the group is funded by “alarmist” environmental groups.
The speaker has said in the past year that climate change will be good for the Kansas economy by extending the growing season and that increased carbon dioxide would help crop growth.
The NCSL report released this week, however, supports previous research finding higher temperatures caused by mounting CO2 levels will lead to water deficits that will in turn hit agriculture in states like Kansas and Colorado.
In addition, invasive species tend to increase as winter temperatures change and precipitation increases in eastern Kansas. Also, greater flood risk would affect farms, the report notes
“Increased flooding would be destructive to the agricultural sector and could cost as much as $150 million annually by 2032.”
University of Kansas geography professor Johannes Feddema has spent recent years researching the state’s climate. His work was part of the University of Maryland’s study.
Feddema’s computer models of a “middle-of-the-road” scenario of global warming shows a 6-inch decline in moisture levels statewide by 2050.
As the earth heats there is an increase in evapotranspiration, leaving less water in the soil.
“It seems to me the big issue with global warming for Kansas is, in fact, our water resources,” Feddema said.
The scientist said that state lawmakers’ debate this year over whether to add new coal-fired power plants in Kansas fails to include the down sides of that in terms of agriculture. Coal plants are among the largest contributors of CO2 to the atmosphere.
“To me, what’s missing is we talk about coal plants and energy export but there is no discussion about what’s going to happen as a result.”
Feddema said that after testifying to legislators earlier this year, “I left there thinking the farming economy doesn’t matter to our Legislature any more.”
“I think we should be looking at a holistic picture, where we include a future outlook for all sectors of our economy.”
For Feddema’s testimony to the legislature earlier this year, click here for a pdf version.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
New study - Economic impacts of climate change on Kansas
July 23, 2008
Sent to me by Sarah Kessinger and also Climateer (within about five minutes of each other) - As part of its ongoing studies into the costs of climate change, the University of Maryland has just released eight major case studies regarding how climate change might have an impact on different states across the U.S.
Kansas is one of the case studies.
For a .pdf of the full report (20 pages), click here. I’m also working on a more in-depth summary of the research, but for now think about the following findings. All figures are in 2007 dollars.
(Keep in mind, the study is based on models to help local and state governments with risk management, adaptation, and prevention. Models are projections, not predictions, and they are always being improved on, refined, additional data is added, etc.)
One of the major effects of climate change is increased flooding. On average, floods cause $33 million in damage for all of KS per year. These losses will increase. Water quality will deteriorate due to increased run-off.
For the agricultural sector, costs from flooding will be around $150 million per year. For other sectors combined, losses will be around $87 million and 700 jobs.
Climate change also increases invasive species that threaten agricultural yields. Right now KS loses $871 million to invasive species per year, or 8% total market value of crops. If invasive species increase even 1% per year, this will also cause $58 million in damage to other sectors as well as a loss of approximately 400 ag jobs by 2017.
Climate change will impact the growing seasons for wheat, sorghum, and hay crops. For a 9 degree Fahrenheit temperature rise and 1 percent decrease in precipitation (possible in western KS by 2035), the total crop value will decrease by 11 percent, or $290.4 million dollars. The impact on the rest of the KS economy would be $169 million and a loss of almost 1400 jobs.
Climate change also has an impact on human health, in particular respiratory illnesses like asthma. Already in 2001, direct and indirect costs of asthma treatment in Overland Park and Kansas City KS were at $13 million annually. In 1998, costs associated with missed work days totaled $105 million.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Weeds, climate change, and the future of agriculture
July 23, 2008
A weed is something growing where you don’t want it to. At best, the impact of climate change on plants is not well understood.
A common thing heard in these parts is that CO2 will make crops grow faster. Well - if so, it will probably have that impact on weeds, too. Currently, weeds cost U.S. farmers about 12 percent of their harvest, an estimated annual loss of $33 billion.
This article from the New York Times investigates the impact of that climate change could have on weeds, especially as demonstrated by the research of USDA crop scientist Lewis Ziska.
Ziska was able to reproduce the growing conditions that the IPCC projected will take place over the next 30-50 years, if the world is only moderately successful in controlling carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate change.
The following excerpts seemed important enough to post in full.
What happened over the next five growing seasons surprised even him.
Not only did the weeds grow much larger in hotter, CO2-enriched plots — a weed called lambs-quarters, or Chenopodium album, grew to an impressive 6 to 8 feet on the farm but to a frightening 10 to 12 feet in the city — but the urban, futuristic weeds also produced more pollen.
Even more alarming was the way that the increased heat and CO2 accelerated and perverted the succession of species within the plots. Typically, a cleared area in the Eastern United States, if left to itself, returns to native woodland. This process varies with the site and circumstances, but in its archetypical form fast-growing annual weeds cover the soil first, playing the role of what ecologists classify as “pioneer plants.” These gradually give way to longer-lived perennial weeds, which are in turn replaced by shrubs and trees.
In the natural version of this process, the pioneers and their successors are species indigenous to the area, and the woodland’s restoration takes decades. But what Ziska observed in his urban plots was ecology on amphetamines, a nearly completed succession to trees by the end of five years, with a domination by invasive weed trees of the most troublesome sort: ailanthus, Norway maples and mulberries…
Weeds are already very well adapted to living with human society, and especially with agriculture. We’ve even accidentally bred them to be stronger and more resistant to our efforts to eradicate them.
Simply put, any plant, if we dislike it, becomes an intruder in our landscape and so a weed. Arguably, then, there was no such thing as a weed until mankind developed the need to discriminate, which came with the development of agriculture in the Neolithic era, around 9,000 B.C.
In fact, many of the wild grains like red rice or wild oats that are among our most troublesome agricultural weeds today were valued food sources until we graduated from the hunter-gatherer stage of our existence.
Much has been made of our scientific triumph in breeding modern crop plants from those wild ancestors. The transformation of an east Asian wild grass (red rice) into the crop that provides 20 percent of humanity’s caloric intake is extraordinary. What generally goes unrecognized, though, except among weed scientists, is the extent to which we also made weeds what they are.
Coexistence with mankind has given rise to the sort of tough plants that flourish despite the worst we can do — hoeing, pulling, burning and, more recently, spraying the fields with herbicidal chemicals. Weeds have adapted to every means we used to exterminate them, even turning the treatments to their own advantage.
Attacking a Canada thistle (actually of Eurasian origin and a regular entry in “worst weeds of North America” lists) with hoe or plow, for example, may destroy the plant’s aboveground growth but leaves the soil full of severed bits of fleshy root, each of which may sprout a new plant.
As weeds have grown stronger and more genetically diverse, crops have moved in the opposite direction. The more diverse a plant is, the better it will be able to cope with climate change.
A result of this history is that crops and weeds embody diametrically opposed genetic strategies. Over the centuries, we have deliberately bred the genetic diversity out of our crop plants. Creating crop populations composed of clones or near clones was an essential step in achieving higher yields and the sort of uniform growth that makes large-scale, mechanized cultivation and harvesting possible.
Because weed populations live as opportunists, however, they must include individuals with the ability to flourish in whatever type of habitat we make available. They also need diversity to cope with the wide range of punishments we inflict. A patch of Canada thistles, if it is to survive when the farmer switches from hoeing to herbicides, must include individuals that develop a resistance to the chemicals over time.
Weed populations that lacked the necessary genetic diversity faded from our fields, lawns and waste places; historians of agriculture can cite many such casualties.
The survivors are an astonishingly plastic group of plants… “When you change a resource in the environment,” Ziska said recently, sitting in his compact office, “you are going to, in effect, favor the weed over the crop. There is always going to be a weed poised genetically to benefit from almost any change.”
… What he and his colleagues have found, he said, is that weeds benefit far more than crop plants from the changes in CO2 and that the implications of this for agriculture and public health are grave.
Tests with common agricultural weeds like Canada thistle and quack grass found them more resistant to herbicides when grown in higher concentrations of CO2, making them harder to control. Ziska hypothesizes that this may be a result of faster growth; the weeds mature more rapidly, leaving behind more quickly the seedling stage during which they are most vulnerable. This promises to be an expensive problem for farmers, who will have to spend more on chemicals and other anti-weed measures to protect their crops. (Herbicides already cost farmers more than $10 billion annually worldwide.)
But enhancing CO2 levels, Ziska has found, not only augments the growth rate of many common weeds, increasing their size and bulk; it also changes their chemical composition. When he grew ragweed plants in an atmosphere with 600 p.p.m. of CO2 (the level projected for the end of this century in that same climate-change panel “B2 scenario”), they produced twice as much pollen as plants grown in an atmosphere with 370 p.p.m. (the ambient level in the year 1998). This is bad news for allergy sufferers, especially since the pollen harvested from the CO2-enriched chamber proved far richer in the protein that causes the allergic reaction. Poison ivy has also demonstrated not only more vigorous growth at higher levels of CO2 but also a more virulent form of urushiol, the oil in its tissue that provokes a rash.
Want more information? Check out this report sponsored by the USDA on the impact of climate change on agriculture.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Konza Prairie to become major new site for studying climate change. (Salina Journal) K-State is in line for tens of millions of dollars to study the impact of climate change on ecological systems - in this case, the Konza prairie. If Congress approves the budget, then K-State would become a member of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). Quotable:
“There are likely to be significant ecological changes over the next three decades,” Blair said. “The idea is we can detect types of environmental changes we wouldn’t necessarily be able to see at individual sites.”
Scientists expect changes such as more extreme rainfall over grasslands because of global warming, as well as ongoing changes in the country’s land use for farming, ranching and housing developments, among others.
“This research data will be freely available to the public and the entire scientific community,” Blair said.
Appeal filed in Ellis County wind development. I’m not too clear what’s going on out there with Iberdola’s new wind farm - it appears that while an appeal against the county commission’s decision to approve the plan has been filed, it is not going to matter to this part of the process. Instead, the wind development will probably go ahead while the appeal will be resolved in district court. I think. (Someone else read this story and try to make sense of it) (HDNews)
Moody’s financial outlook for utilities. In years to come, utilities face several major challenges (which can be handled, but they’ll have to step carefully) aging infrastructure, rising fuel and construction costs, and the current uncertainty