News Updates: E.P.A. Ruling Could Speed Up Approval of Coal Plants
December 19, 2008
Reprinted in full from the NY Times:
By MATTHEW L. WALD and FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: December 18, 2008
WASHINGTON — Officials weighing federal applications by utilities to build new coal-fired power plants cannot consider their greenhouse gas output, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency ruled late Thursday. Some environmentalists fear the decision will clear the way for the approval of several such plants in the last days of the Bush administration.
The ruling, by Stephen L. Johnson, the administrator, responds to a decision made last month by the Environmental Appeals Board, a panel within the E.P.A., that had blocked the construction of a small new plant on the site of an existing power plant, Bonanza, on Ute tribal land in eastern Utah.
The Supreme Court ruled last year that the agency could regulate carbon dioxide, the most prevalent global warming gas, under existing law. The agency already requires some power plants to track how much carbon dioxide they emit.
But a memorandum issued by Mr. Johnson late Thursday puts the agency on record saying that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant to be regulated when approving power plants. He cited “sound policy considerations.”
His said in the memorandum that each year, about 275 new sources of pollution, from power plants to apartment buildings, must obtain permits saying that they will not significantly decrease air quality. Mr. Johnson wrote that the decision he overruled had confused the federal and state agencies that issue these permits.
“Given the confusion,” the memorandum said, “the best path forward is to establish a clear interpretation” of what can be considered a pollutant to be regulated.
“The current concerns over global climate change should not drive E.P.A. into adopting an unworkable policy of requiring emission controls” in these cases, he said.
Mr. Johnson rejected a new line of attack by environmental groups. In the wake of the Bush administration’s failure to decide if carbon dioxide could be regulated under existing laws, environmental groups pursued a new strategy in fighting proposed coal plants like the one in Utah.
They asserted that because carbon dioxide must already be monitored under federal laws, that monitoring is tantamount to regulation. Therefore, they argued, its impact must be considered before new plants are approved. Last month the appeals board said the argument could be used, but was not required. On Thursday the administrator overruled the board. He said that simple monitoring cannot be considered regulation.
John Walke, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement, “It’s a marvel to behold an E.P.A. action that so utterly disdains global warming responsibility and disdains the law at the same time.”
Jeff Holmstead, a former E.P.A. official who now works with the Electrical Liability Coordinating Council, said the Johnson memo ensured that the incoming Obama administration had increased freedom to make its decisions on the status of carbon dioxide.
“I think if you’re Lisa Jackson,” whom Obama has chosen as Mr. Johnson’s successor, “you have to be pretty grateful,” he said. “She has the opportunity to go through a rule-making and see how to deal” with the issue.
Vickie Patton, deputy general counsel of the Environmental Defense Fund, estimated that as much as 8,000 megawatts of new coal-fired power plants could win swifter approval as a result of the ruling.
Opponents of coal plants list several in the late stages of the approval process that could be affected by the decision Thursday.
“There are a bunch that they are going to argue now don’t have to consider carbon dioxide, and which will be beyond the reach of the incoming Obama administration,” said Bruce Nilles, director of the anticoal campaign at the Sierra Club, an environmental group.
He listed a proposed $1.25 billion plant, called Pee Dee, that Santee Cooper, a South Carolina utility, is seeking to build and that won state approval on Tuesday; a project in Rogers City, Mich., that the Wolverine Power Cooperative Electric is seeking to build; and another project in Utah, a small plant sought by Consolidated Energy in Davis County. That one would run on petroleum coke, which is also carbon-rich.
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
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.”
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
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
Your Friday video extravaganza. First from EDF -
And now, lovely actresses telling you to use CFL lightbulbs! (If you want to know how to recycle the lightbulbs click here for a pdf handout)
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Live blogging (pretending to) Warner-Lieberman Climate Change Security Act in Senate (aka, “a historic day”)
June 2, 2008
As noted earlier, the Warner-Lieberman Climate Security Act is being debated today in the Senate.
CEP is nonpartisan - you may have noticed that we usually just refer to “supporters” and “opponents” on policy issues, and leave their parties out of it unless the affiliations somehow make a difference to the story. We tend to find that climate and energy issues have the potential to transcend party lines.
However, try applying this approach to covering the U.S. Senate. Their dynamics make partisan politics in Kansas seem like we are all holding hands and singing hymns together.
So, the below is highly abbreviated. In part to avoid the partisan jabs they keep zinging each other with.
This live blogging is just for fun, so CEP can keep notes on different policy arguments. You can listen in live here.
****************
Mitch McConnell - carbon regulation will cost too much and when gas prices are going up this bill is really bad timing and I need to head out to a meeting now.
Harry Reid - we have to protect the beauties of nature and what McConnell said shocked me - shocked me - because gas prices have gone up 250% since the Republicans came into power but the EIA says that this bill will offset the price increases from this bill and the Republicans are planning to filibuster and we won’t get to vote. Global warming is real and is caused by manmade pollution - drought, changed growing seasons, sea level rise, increased precipitation, increased wildfires - it’s caused in part by burning fossil fuels. We gotta fix it. The one thing we can’t afford is delay. And Warner-Lieberman will restore America’s economic growth.
Jeff Sessions - this is a huge income redistribution scheme and this is a bad time to be taking this up and 30 hours is not enough we can do a lot now but we shouldn’t rush it with this bill and we need to stop buying foreign oil this is a wealth transfer and we need to get our energy at home and I really, really like the Wall St Journal editorial page don’t make fun of it this legislation is not a good idea and it shouldn’t be done in this fashion we must be good stewards over this marvelous earth over which we have dominion and energy is powerful force for good electricity is a great thing good for our families if we didn’t have it we would still be hauling water in buckets from the spring can’t see it in any other light. Many are convinced the world is warming but few would dispute the immensity of the earth and complexity of forces at work in our climate and climate experts have developed complex models to explain and monitor forces that have been warming us but apparently not for last ten years - some think these models are fact, some don’t there is dispute there are some legitimate questions that carbon dioxide -
MH - forget it, he’s getting tangled here, can’t follow. And for partisans, yes, Reid got tangled too, they all do. Regardless of party, these are all politicians. They tangle. Anyway, Sessions is debating global warming and saying that being prudent means NOT taking action right away especially since it will cost money. Supporters of the bill are essentially saying that being prudent means TAKING action right away because it will cost even more not to.
(reprinted straight from USDA press release)
U.S. CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE PROGRAM RELEASES REPORT ON THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON AGRICULTURE, LAND AND WATER RESOURCES AND BIODIVERSITY
WASHINGTON, May 27, 2008 — The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) today released “Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.3 (SAP 4.3): The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources, and Biodiversity in the United States.” The CCSP integrates the federal research efforts of 13 agencies on climate and global change.
Today’s report is one of the most extensive examinations of climate impacts on U.S. ecosystems. USDA is the lead agency for this report and coordinated its production as part of its commitment to CCSP.
“The report issued today provides practical information that will help land owners and resource managers make better decisions to address the risks of climate change,” said Agriculture Chief Economist Joe Glauber.
The report was written by 38 authors from the universities, national laboratories, non-governmental organizations, and federal service. The report underwent expert peer review by 14 scientists through a Federal Advisory Committee formed by the USDA. The National Center for Atmospheric Research also coordinated in the production of the report. It is posted on the CCSP Web site at:
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap4-3/default.php
The report finds that climate change is already affecting U.S. water resources, agriculture, land resources, and biodiversity, and will continue to do so. Specific findings include:
* Grain and oilseed crops will mature more rapidly, but increasing temperatures will increase the risk of crop failures, particularly if precipitation decreases or becomes more variable.
* Higher temperatures will negatively affect livestock. Warmer winters will reduce mortality but this will be more than offset by greater mortality in hotter summers. Hotter temperatures will also result in reduced productivity of livestock and dairy animals.
* Forests in the interior West, the Southwest, and Alaska are already being affected by climate change with increases in the size and frequency of forest fires, insect outbreaks and tree mortality. These changes are expected to continue.
* Much of the United States has experienced higher precipitation and streamflow, with decreased drought severity and duration, over the 20th century. The West and Southwest, however, are notable exceptions, and increased drought conditions have occurred in these regions.
* Weeds grow more rapidly under elevated atmospheric CO2. Under projections reported in the assessment, weeds migrate northward and are less sensitive to herbicide applications.
* There is a trend toward reduced mountain snowpack and earlier spring snowmelt runoff in the Western United States.
* Horticultural crops (such as tomato, onion, and fruit) are more sensitive to climate change than grains and oilseed crops.
* Young forests on fertile soils will achieve higher productivity from elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Nitrogen deposition and warmer temperatures will increase productivity in other types of forests where water is available.
* Invasion by exotic grass species into arid lands will result from climate change, causing an increased fire frequency. Rivers and riparian systems in arid lands will be negatively impacted.
* A continuation of the trend toward increased water use efficiency could help mitigate the impacts of climate change on water resources.
* The growing season has increased by 10 to 14 days over the last 19 years across the temperate latitudes. Species’ distributions have also shifted.
* The rapid rates of warming in the Arctic observed in recent decades, and projected for at least the next century, are dramatically reducing the snow and ice covers that provide denning and foraging habitat for polar bears.
USDA agencies are responding to the risks of climate change. For example, the Forest Service is incorporating climate change risks into National Forest Management Plans and is providing guidance to forest managers on how to respond and adapt to climate change.
The Natural Resources Conservation Service and Farm Services Agency are encouraging actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration through conservation programs.
USDA’s Risk Management Agency has prepared tools to manage drought risks and is conducting an assessment of the risks of climate change on the crop insurance program.
For more information, please visit:
News Updates: Transmission strategies, Westar makes environmental improvements, Kansans scold legislature, and more
May 12, 2008
Texas started it. We all know the drill. We want more renewable energy brought online. Can’t do that, though, without better transmission lines.
The solution in Texas - within ERCOT, the grid manager for 75% of the state - was to develop Competititive Renewable Energy Zones, or CREZs. The state legislature designated CREZs as priority areas for transmission development. Then wind developers felt they had the security to start planning wind farms.
Now Western Governors Association is borrowing the idea and calling them WREZs. (And no, I can’t guess how to pronounce that acronym). Big difference, though, this means thinking about transmission regionally, not just in terms of a state.
The Midwestern Governors Association Greenhouse Gas Accord has called for something similar
Westar rates could rise due to environmental improvements. Westar is applying to the Kansas Corporation Commission for approval to increase rates to cover the environmental improvements it is making at Jeffrey Energy Center, one of the dirtiest coal-fired units in the nation.
Other improvements will be to the La Cygne, Gordon Evans and Murray Gill plants. The average customer bill will increase from 91 cents to $1.82 per month (Wichita Eagle).
Brownback and the coal plant proposals. According to a staffer, former presidential candidate and Senator Sam Brownback has been working with Sunflower Electric to get the coal plants approved (Pratt Tribune).
Ohio passes a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). According to Pew Climate:
The law mandates that by 2025, at least 25 percent of all electricity sold in the state come from alternative energy resources. At least half of the standard, or 12.5 percent of electricity sold, must be generated by renewable sources such as wind, solar (which must account for at least 0.5 percent of electricity use by 2025), hydropower, geothermal, or biomass. At least half of this renewable energy must be generated in-state.
In addition to renewables, the additional 12.5 percent of the overall 25 percent standard can also be met through alternative energy resources like third-generation nuclear power plants, fuel cells, energy-efficiency programs, and clean coal technology that can control or prevent carbon dioxide emissions.
The bill also creates a renewable energy credit (REC) tracking system, which allows utilities to buy, sell, and trade credits to comply with the renewable energy and solar energy requirements. Additionally, electric utilities will be required to achieve energy savings of 22.5 percent by the end of 2025 through energy efficiency programs. Utilities must also implement programs to reduce peak energy demand one percent beginning in 2009, and an additional .75 percent per year through 2018.
With the enactment of this new legislation, Ohio becomes the 27th state to establish a renewable electricity standard.
Will they remember in November…? Editorial pages across the state are much less than pleased with the Kansas legislature right now. In common, many of them are irked with how much air time the coal plants took up, compared to issues like immigration and health care. (See Manhattan Mercury for one example.)
Big oops! As reported by DeSmogBlog. Climate change denier Dennis Avery and Heartland Institute member had published a list titled “500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming.”
However, as Kevin Grandia reports, he “emailed 122 of the scientists yesterday afternoon, calling their attention to the list. So far - in less than 24 hours - three dozen of those scientists had responded in outrage, denying that their research supports Avery’s conclusions and demanding that their names be removed.”
News Updates: Climate change and national security
April 22, 2008
Let’s think about stereotypes for a second. Two big ones, that I often get to hear as part of my day job:
People who accept the scientific findings of climate change, and/or consider the evidence and the potential risks to be significant = crazy long-haired hippies wearing birkenstocks
People who feel differently = crazy short-haired rednecks wearing combat boots
Clearly, both stereotypes are stupid and simplistic. So - all together now! - let’s pitch them.
Having done that, I feel we can now reasonably consider the following news story: How the topic of national security and climate change has allowed different factions to find common ground (Time).
According to Time, a good example is Republican Senator John Warner. He went from fighting legislation on carbon dioxide regulation to supporting it. Why?
Climate change is usually characterized as an environmental threat, but it wasn’t melting icebergs or endangered polar bears that made Warner change his mind.
“I have focused above all on issues of national security,” Warner said after the bill passed committee. “I see the problem of global climate change fitting squarely within that focus.”
For Warner, unchecked global warming could create a world that is inherently more dangerous for the U.S. Acting to mitigate climate change was another way of keeping America safe. It’s a message that resonates with Americans who would sooner log a tree than hug it, and raises the possibility that conservatives and liberals might find common ground on climate change.
“I find [conservatives] skeptical on this issue,” says James Woolsey, a right-leaning Democrat who was director of the Central Intelligence Agency between 1993 and 1995, under former President Bill Clinton. “But when I mention the connection to security, suddenly things like solar power start looking a lot better.”
A very popular study last year made this connection especially well - the CNA corporation’s report on climate change, authored by an impressive panel of retired admirals and generals from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. (For CEP’s summary of the CNA report, click here for pdf.) There’s even a video -
As the Time article described the impact of this report:
The retired officers who made up the CNA panel are hardly environmentalists, and many said they came to the report skeptical of climate change. That was then. “It’s now a mainstream security issue, not a fringe movement for tree-huggers and Birkenstock wearers,” says Sherri Goodman, who chaired the CNA report and served as deputy Undersecretary of Defense for environmental security in the Clinton Administration — a position that does not exist today. “It’s affecting the lives of billions and so we’ve got to understand what those threats are, and how to plan for them and reduce them.”
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Multimedia: Strange bedfellows (just for giggles)
April 18, 2008
Since CEP is a nonpartisan organization, you will note that we stay away from any “Democrats say blah blah and Republicans say blah blah BLAH” sort of comments. If we do mention one party or the other, then I have to go on a frantic search for coverage on what the other side says, so as to give equal time. (I know. Equal time doctrine. What a weird concept.)
So. I really like it when I can post items like this, where the equal time issue is already taken care of. If you watch TV, you may have seen the following commercials already.
Here’s Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi, with big smiles on their faces. Regardless of their other differences, they are promising to get along when it comes to climate change. Message: Democrats and Republicans need to work together.
And here is Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton. They have big smiles, too. Message: Liberals and conservatives need to work together also.
And now, I anxiously await some teenagers to put together a parody of these ads - apples and bananas need to work together in a fruit salad! 
or something like that. Then you could have bloopers, or outtakes, where the apple is trying to kneecap the banana, while the banana is trying to smother the apple with its own peel. And/or vice versa.
Only when someone parodies you do you really know that you have arrived.
Anyway. Happy Friday!
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
News Updates: All Kansas energy news today, folks. Regulating greenhouse gases, coal, etc.
April 11, 2008
Kansas Energy Council mixes it up. OK, so greenhouse gas regulation is coming, including regulation of carbon dioxide. Should Kansas sit and wait for feds to act? Should it act itself? Should it get prepared, regardless?
The Kansas Energy Council addressed these issues on Monday (TCJournal). Those who attended the meetings (including CEP Executive Director Nancy Jackson) offered observations on the choices before the KEC.
Liz Brosius, executive director of the Kansas Energy Council, said all options for reducing the state’s carbon footprint would be costly.
“Tackling global warming will be expensive,” she said. “There’s going to be a lot of resistance as we begin to make things more expensive. Political considerations loom large.”
Nancy Jackson, executive director of the Climate and Energy Project at the Land Institute in Salina, said the type of face-to-face discussion about greenhouse emissions that occurred Wednesday among energy council members representing environmental groups; state government; and the refinery, trucking, housing and utility industries would help set the foundation for implementation of a national system.
“If you’re not at the table for the discussion,” she said, “you’re on the menu later.”
Jackson said Kansas was positioned to be a big winner in a rapidly changing energy economy. The state has massive underground formations where carbon could be stored rather than released to the air, she said. Greenhouse gases pumped below the surface could improve oil recovery in some areas, she said.
In addition, the state has solid potential for power production from wind and solar facilities and through burning biomass from crop residue or prairie grasses.
“We’re stuck in the ‘we’re going to lose’ mentality,” Jackson said. “Kansas should be a net winner.”
Pressure to change vote on coal plants. As reported in the Wichita Eagle by Randy Schofield, Wichita legislator and Republican Dale Swenson is feeling the heat to change his “no” vote on the Holcomb plants.
When you read the story, you begin get an idea of how intense this pressure is. More or less, Swenson’s position on the plants is, as Schofield describes it: “He’s not dead set against a new coal plant, but he’s not convinced, either, that Holcomb is the right project.” It’s a very even-handed look at the pros and cons
Reminder from CEP: Support your legislators for their votes that you like, as well as the ones you don’t. These people work under great pressure - regardless of your views on this particular issue, please do TELL THEM THANK YOU.
For how legislators voted on the most recent Holcomb vote, and for how to contact them, please check here.
KDHE Secretary Bremby speaks on his decision to deny the coal plant permits. In particular, he discusses the importance of the recent Supreme Court decision that the EPA could regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant (AP/ Joplin Globe). (It appears that they will probably not take concrete action to do so under this administration.) Quotable:
But Bremby said the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision was crucial because the state’s air-quality laws are tied to the federal Clean Air Act. Deciding that CO2 wasn’t a factor would have created “a complete disconnect.”
Bremby decided in October to deny an air-quality permit to Sunflower Electric Power Corp. for the two plants.
“I think it was a typical permitting decision until the Supreme Court decision suggested that CO2 needed to be considered as a pollutant,” Bremby said. “The science was really insufficient for the decision. It was the science coupled with the interpretation of federal law by the Supreme Court.”
The court decision in question was about carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. Critics charge that it doesn’t apply to carbon dioxide emissions from other sources. Supporters say a pollutant is a pollutant - ie, mercury is regulated across all industries - and that this court decision will be used as a sanction for future carbon dioxide regulation from all sorts of industrial and transportation sources.
Regardless, this point will lead to further litigation. Bremby spoke to this as well:
“We anticipated litigation, regardless of the decision, and so we wanted to make sure that we factored in everything possible,” Bremby said. “We had to factor that (the Supreme Court decision) in.”
Bremby said while the Department of Health and Environment staff who handle air-quality permit continued its work on Sunflower’s application, another team reviewed the U.S. Supreme Court decision and whether it applied.
“As you might imagine, we had mixed views internally,” he said. “Pro or con, we knew that there would be litigation.”
Bremby also noted that for all the authority granted to him under Kansas law, the attorney general’s office told him he couldn’t do one thing — push back the Dec. 1 deadline for ruling on Sunflower’s permit application to consider more information.
“The portion of this that I have the most difficult time reconciling — and I think this is the matter that will ultimately be determined in the courts — is the timing,” he said. “Unfortunately, there’s a Supreme Court decision, there’s the science that’s moving; we have a permit that we can’t stop.”
He added: “Not withstanding all that, I felt it was the right decision at the right time for the right reasons.”
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Everyone go to their corners, now, for a time out… Supporters and opponents of Sunflower Electric’s proposed 1,400 MW coal plants are all saying they are taking a break before the legislature comes back on April 30 (Garden City Telegram).
Of course, the coal plants won’t be the only issue on the agenda (even with two bills on the topic awaiting veto override attempts, plus two back-up bills in the wings) (Wichita Eagle). There’s also immigration, health care, and abortion. None of those are low profile issues. Not in Kansas.
In addition, there’s also the Board of Healing Arts, a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to hunt and fish, an important anti-stalking initiative, and protection for military parents against changes in child custody agreements after they return from deployment.
Wind farm in Cloud County. As reported by Sarah Kessinger, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Cloud County wind farm being developed by Horizon Wind will be this Friday (Hutch News). Located south of Concordia and spread over 20,000 acres leased from local landowners, the first phase of the Meridian Way Wind Farm will come in around 200 megawatts. Details have not yet been released about the terms of the deal between county commissioners and Horizon. Landowners will also receive annual payments.
Accuracy of climate models holding up well. The issue here is pretty easy to understand. The natural world is an incredibly complex entity. Even advanced forms of human understanding - like climate models, for example - can only approximate the complexity of natural systems.
The expectation for creating accurate climate models, then, is that they represent an accurately measured cross- section of the major climate factors, plus how these factors interact together.
And evidently, climate models have been doing so very well (NASA). A study recently completed at the University of Utah finds that: “current climate models are quite accurate and can be valuable tools for those seeking solutions on reversing global warming trends. Most of these models project a global warming trend that amounts to about 7 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 100 years.”
The study looked at 50 models, including the U.S. models and the IPCC. (Patriotic moment: The U.S. models turned out to be one of the best in the world.) Quotable:
The many hours of studying models and comparing them with actual climate changes fulfills the increasing wish to know how much one can trust climate models and their predictions. Given the significance of climate change research in public policy, the study’s results also provide important response to critics of global warming. Earlier this year, working group one of the IPCC released its fourth global warming report. The University of Utah study results directly relate to this highly publicized report by showing that the models used for the IPCC paper have reached an unprecedented level of realism.
Note, though (as always): Climate models are PROJECTIONS. Not PREDICTIONS. Humans don’t know the future. They can only try to prepare for it.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
News Updates: Tri-State thinks about nuclear, climate changes and big changes, and what the KS legislature got done
April 7, 2008
Tri-State turns to nuclear? Tri-State is the Colorado utility company backing Sunflower Electric’s proposed 1400 MW expansion at Holcomb. They would own 85% of the power. However, as we all know, that expansion has not been going as planned.
Recently, Tri-State started looking in entirely a different direction from coal - toward nuclear. According to the Denver Post, Tri-State’s Board of Directors voted to pursue exploring the option of a nuclear plant in southeastern Colorado. Quotable:
The company secured the site and necessary water rights for a plant that could either be coal-fired or nuclear. Tri-State would need a partner on a nuclear plant because of high construction costs. The staff was directed to pursue potential partners.
Right now, coal-fired power plants provide 70 percent of the company’s generation. Going nuclear could blunt some of the criticism about coal’s high carbon emissions, while likely opening up an entirely new battleground.
At Tri-State’s annual meeting at its headquarters in Westminster, board chairman Harold Thompson said the utility is dealing with rising energy costs and a tighter regulatory environment as it prepares for the future.
“We’re at a crossroads here, in more ways than one,” Thompson said.
Moment of common sense, here - or maybe total financial innocence, I don’t know - nuclear power is phenomenally expensive. I’ve heard numbers now from $4 billion to $14 billion. The costs of coal plant construction have recently increased 30% or more, and the original estimate for the Sunflower expansion was $3.6 billion. If those plants do get built, the costs could come in around $5 billion.
How could Tri-State (even with a partner for the nuclear) possibly afford nuclear and coal both?
Complete technological and economic revolution needed to head off the more severe effects of climate change. No problem! I read this NYTimes article then had to go out and walk around the block.
Summary: Politicians, economists, scientists, etc. All of these folks used to be pretty confident that a market-based approach - ie, putting caps on carbon dioxide emissions - will force the necessary changes in energy usage that can help head off the worst effects of global warming.
Naturally, new research seems to indicate that this optimism is a little misguided. In fact, global emissions are rising. Energy efficiency is falling. It is doubtful that the market can force the necessary changes in time. New low-carbon technologies are also desperately needed. Science and technology needs major infusions of research and development funds to make this happen.
Now, me here, not the NYT - there appears to be a recession going on in many parts of the country. There’s a war going on. Etc. Where are these extra funds to fight climate change going to come from?
Since this information stressed me a little, to relax I took all the relevant cliches I knew and then stacked them up in two opposing piles. In one pile - Gotta keep calm. Can’t lost your head in an emergency. Don’t act in haste, because you will repent at leisure. Etc.
In the other pile - well, I stuck a metaphor in there instead. Say there’s a group of guys, and they are facing a pack of crocodiles. They have a few firearms, some sticks, things that go boom, etc. They really need to grab some (if not all) of these items pretty soon, or the crocs are going to eat them for dinner.
Instead, the guys are just sitting there, arguing. And if one of them wants to hang out in the background and invent a new weapon, no problem, but he needs to be sure that the other members of the team will keep the crocs busy while he does.
Otherwise, there’s really not much of a point.
Lotta talk, not a lotta walk. Newspapers across the state review the Kansas legislature’s progress - election year progress, mind you - and find it pretty lacking. Sunflower Electric supporters managed to gum up the works pretty good (TCJournal). Moderates on both sides of the aisle found this problematic.
From the KC Star: “Coal has hijacked the session,” said Rep. Pat Colloton, a Leawood Republican. “It has pushed aside all the many things we should have been working on, from health care to immigration to highways. It has totally dominated the discussion.” From the Hutch News:
But overall, there is a weariness to the tone of those asked about the issue. Rep. Nile Dillmore, D-Wichita, said he’d heard about enough. “Everything we say has to be filtered through a lump of coal this session.”
He noted his district is strongly against the legislation that would enable the new plants. So he’s voted against them. But Dillmore said there are limited options for large-scale power production amid growing consumer demand. “Coal and nuclear, what else is there?” he said. “Unless someone has a very large squirrel, what are you going to do?”
CEP laughed itself silly over that last. We think he means putting a really big squirrel on a treadmill, kind of thing. (Obviously a joke.)
On a more serious note, of course he is correct: The world is in serious need of bridge fuels to get us through the next 20 years or so, until technologies of fossil fuel consumption can catch up to the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
For investor-owned utilities like Westar and KCPL, the big squirrel of choice is energy efficiency, and augmenting fossil fuels with wind power. For the power plant that would run the proposed national bioterrorism defense center in Kansas, their preferred squirrel is natural gas.
Across the nation, though, few are choosing the big squirrel of coal. According to the Innovest report on Sunflower, in 2007 more than 50 proposed coal-fired plants in 20 states were canceled or delayed.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
News Update: coal money and climate change
March 31, 2008
Historic climate pact under negotiation. This week, representatives from 163 countries are discussing the first streps necessary to produce an upcoming international climate pact to take effect in 2009 (CSMonitor). Quotable:
“And unlike talks that led to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which applied only to developed countries, these talks must set some type of binding greenhouse-gas emissions objectives for developing countries as well.
More players are facing decisions that involve significant changes in long-established patterns of producing and using energy, of economic development, and of delivering economic and technological aid to the developing world.”
As this is going on, scientists have discovered that between 2000 and 2005, greenhouse gas emissions rose four times faster than they had during the previous 10 years.
What sort of emissions reductions are needed to head off catastrophic climate change? If implemented, an emissions objective arrived at an earlier UN conference in Bali would require industrial countries to “reduce emissions from 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.”
That represents a benchmark along the path to stabilizing global emissions so that by century’s end, global average temperature increases will be held to around 3.6 degrees F. Carbon dioxide, the key player in human-triggered warming, remains in the atmosphere for up to 200 years. Stabilization of atmospheric concentrations implies that emissions eventually must fall to virtually zero…
… “There’s a huge gap between what the scientists say is necessary” to hit the 2-degree mark “and what the political process can deliver,” Mr. Diringer says. “The challenge is to narrow that gap,” even if it isn’t slammed shut.
Kansas, coal, and climate change. The KCStar investigates Sunflower Electric’s connection to groups that have spent large sums to deny the existence or risks associated with climate change. They also report that:
… the effort to swing votes has turned into the most expensive lobbying fight in state history. Annual lobbying expenditures have topped $1 million for the first time. More than half of the $1.17 million in lobbying expenses reported to the state in 2007 came from energy companies and utilities.
Expansion opponents, including natural-gas-producing giant Chesapeake Energy, have kicked in more than $400,000. Proponents, led by Sunflower Electric Power Corp., which proposed the expansion, spent an additional $100,000, in addition to an unknown amount for advertisements that weren’t required to be reported to the state. Sunflower and its allies spent $127,000 more in January.
Humans contribute to climate change by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. When burned, these fuels release carbon dioxide long sequestered from the earth’s regular carbon cycle. When carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, it leads to global warming and climate change.
Some costs on nuclear. Although Sunflower Electric’s proposed coal plants at Holcomb have dominated energy news lately, Kansas has seen a nuclear power debate stirring this legislative session as well. During the conversations that have taken place, there has been at least one very large, missing ingredient - how much would a new nuclear power plant cost?
As reported on NPR, Florida Power and Light just got two plants approved - price tag, $24 billion. Progress Energy, with another approved application, estimates $14 billion.
Wind power. WSJournal’s Environmental Capital blog looks at international picture of wind industry. Verdict:
“Wind power is already the fastest-growing source of new electric power in much of the world, the U.S. included, where wind power accounted for one-quarter of new generation capacity installed last year. And that will continue unabated—provided the industry can finally solve the turbine-supply problems that have plagued it for the last few years.”
Problem: Looks like they yanked the image for the article off Wikipedia… and, um, I think those are pretty old turbines. Which if memory serves, have the towers that are contribute to increased bird deaths, in part because of the perching potential. I really don’t think that picture represents contemporary turbine design. Small but important point.
Green, huh? Governor Sebelius and the TCJournal go a round over whether the second Holcomb bill, SB 148, is greener than the first, SB 327. CEP already offered its own opinion on the green/ not green thing. We were pretty underwhelmed.
TCJ started it, last Friday (sorry, I don’t seem to be able to get to the link without a subscription). Essentially, they argued that SB 148 represented concessions by Sunflower.
The larger point - that this is a special interests piece of legislation targeted at one single company out of the entire Kansas energy industry - seemed not to concern the Capitol-Journal. To quote an editorial in the Salina Journal: “This legislation addresses only one specific situation: the Sunflower plant. Drafting bills on a case-by-case basis is not good statecraft.”
This weekend, Governor Sebelius finished the discussion. Her comments - which were fairly crisp:
This most recent bill is not a concession — it’s an attempt to offer the same negative elements that caused me to veto it in the first place.
The “green energy provisions” the editorial writers championed are practically rendered obsolete by what’s in the rest of the bill…
… The so-called “green” provisions don’t reduce the amount of CO2 the two coal plants will emit. They discourage additional wind power by allowing utilities to shut off a consumer’s power if the wind stops blowing. And while they require a utility to develop an energy efficiency plan, they don’t say what kind of energy savings need to be accomplished by the plan. The statute would actually allow an energy efficiency plan that doesn’t decrease energy use. How is this compromise?
Creation care. Grist reports on the young Southern Baptist theologian who pushed for the conservative faith’s recent declaration of creation care principles.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Below, Dr. Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado at Boulder, Lead Scientist at National Snow and Ice Data Center, explains the significance of the recent ice shelf collapse in western Antartica (also read about it in the British Antarctic Survey’s press release).
The footage is pretty dramatic, but an eyewitness account helps capture the sheer scale of the break-up:
Jim Elliott was onboard the BAS Twin Otter to capture video of the breakout for Vaughan and colleagues. He says,
“I’ve never seen anything like this before – it was awesome. We flew along the main crack and observed the sheer scale of movement from the breakage. Big hefty chunks of ice, the size of small houses, look as though they’ve been thrown around like rubble – it’s like an explosion.”
The breakout is the latest drama in a region of Antarctica that has experienced unprecedented warming over the last 50 years. Several ice shelves have retreated in the past 30 years - six of them collapsing completely (Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and the Jones Ice Shelf.)
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Before we start - KU plays Portland State in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament at 11:25. K-State plays USC at 6:10.
Now that the important stuff is out of the way, let’s move on to -
Bleeding Kansas, take two. This time it’s not about states rights’ and slavery, it’s about coal. Hmm.
Folks outside of the state have noted that we are having a few differences of opinion over energy issues. The WSJournal was yesterday - and (yay!!) this link actually will get you to their Environmental Capital blog, which reprinted enough of the story for non-subscribers to read (thank you!). KDHE Secretary Bremby is featured prominently.
Today is the New York Times, which ends with a quote from Rep. Josh Svaty. Quotable from the article:
In the absence of clear federal mandates for emissions from smokestack industries, states that have been proving grounds for new environmental approaches to energy are becoming battlegrounds as well…
But politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. The national gridlock over climate-change policy has led to an ever-increasing number of state initiatives.
Currently 18 states seek to cap carbon dioxide emissions for industry and 25 support mandates for renewable energy; renewable-mandate legislative battles are under way in Ohio and Michigan. There are three multistate compacts intended to limit emissions and allow trading of carbon allowances; governors of 10 Midwestern states, including Ms. Sebelius, joined such a pact last fall.
The historian in me harks back to the Civil War (or even the much more recent debate over evolution, or the last century’s rise in conservative thought): Kansas has a long pattern of foreshadowing national debates. Which are often not carried out in the most civil tones of voice.
However, we also took an extra, what? twenty years? to repeal Prohibition, so we’re not always that ahead of the curve. Plus, while there are a few powerful government and industry factions really having at each other in a high-profile manner, what interests me more is the public. Which is not getting as much as attention, but I think is even more important.
I don’t think we should confuse leaders with followers, and I don’t think we should underestimate what everyday Kansans can bring to climate and energy discussions. There is no easy way out of these problems. The only ways forward can be found with hard-headed, pragmatic, common sense, guided by a strong sense of values grounded in not only community, but a sense of place.
And the best place in the world to accomplish that - as far as I am concerned - is Kansas.
Holy cow, I teared up. But I think part of that emotion does stem from basketball-related anxiety, too. I lose all that Midwestern pragmatism in a heartbeat when it comes to basketball.
Global warming deniers. Duane Schrag of the Salina Journal hit a home run yesterday with his lead on a story about climate change believers v. deniers: “Admit it, you’re not a scientist. So what you know about global warming came from someone else (please don’t say you made up your mind because you remember there being more snow when you were a kid, or, worse yet, because we had a really big ice storm this year).” Hilarity reigned in the CEP offices as we read parts of it to each other and squealed. We were an all girl scene yesterday, what can I say.
Smart grid being tested in Boulder by Xcel Energy. A smart grid is basically a grid that has the technology to communicate between producers and consumers through smart meters, etc., to accomplish better feedback and management of energy use. Naturally, this concept would get tested in Boulder, CO (MIT Technology Review). Quotable:
The project will equip homes with smart power meters that help people reduce demand when electricity is most expensive. Substations will also use information from the meters to automatically reroute power when problems arise. Among its other benefits, the project should help Boulder residents take better advantage of renewable power sources.
Smart grids cost, but, they also save. You probably get what you pay for. Fact of life, I’ve noticed.
Regulatory uncertainty, or…? Four legislators are saying that the KDHE decision caused a climate of regulatory uncertainty that cost Kansas a big oil refinery. Others are saying that that plant was slated to go into South Dakota four months before KDHE ever handed down its decision denying Sunflower Electric the air permit for the proposed Holcomb coal-fired plants (LJWorld). Hyperion has the air permits, land, and rezoning sewed up in South Dakota already.
The timing on this puzzled me a little. Ten minutes researching Hyperion on Google brought a little more light. Hyperion is privately owned. CEO Albert Huddleston is into Republican funding in a big way, most notably with his donations to the Swiftboat veterans that took on John Kerry in the last election (Reznetnews.org). CNN Money also reported that in his home state of Texas, Huddleston opposed the building of coal plants due to the mercury that they would spread through the environment.
News Updates: climate change and national security, sea level rise - and happy thoughts
March 14, 2008
Some of you familiar with our website (MH is a closet junkie on energy security issues) may recall the CNA National Security and Climate Change report that came out a while back - for the video and a link to the report, click here. CEP also summarized the report and distributed it to legislators at the beginning of the session (go to that link and scroll down to “Reports”).
CSMonitor reports that there is increasing international concern over the security complications of climate change. The European Union will release a similar report this week. Quotable:
The essence of their report: “Climate change is a threat multiplier which exacerbates existing trends, tensions, and instability,” says a story in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper. It continues:
“The main message is that the immediate and devastating effects of global warming will be felt far away from Europe, with the poor suffering disproportionately in south Asia, the Middle East, central Asia, Africa, and Latin America, but that Europe will ultimately bear the consequences. This could be in the form of mass migration, destabilisation … radicalisation of politics and populations, north-south conflict because of the perceived injustice of the causes and effects of global warming, famines caused by arable land loss, wars over water, energy, and other natural resources.”
The article also refers to other issues of international concern, as climate change threatens to reshuffle some pretty important decks - the competition to claim terrain under the melting Arctic ice, issues of water scarcity in the Middle East, etc. The U.S. will also see its immigration picture transform, due to major climate shifts in Latin America.
Along those lines, scientists are starting to unravel the complications of sea level rise. Yes, the water goes up… they knew that (or at least suspected)… but exactly how, and at what rates, increased levels of seawater will affect infrastructure, freshwater supplies, floodplains, etc., is still being hashed through. New studies conclude that urban planners are behind in preparing for this phenomenon (New York Times).
No seas around Kansas. I get that. But if those waters go up, where will folks go? I simply mention it. In a non-xenophobic manner. (If you think wind turbines might crowd your horizon line…)
Climate refugees, actually,