You must - absolutely must - click over to this online presentation. The website is hosted by the Des Moines Register, and it reviews a major climate change study just completed in Iowa.
I can summarize below, but you really shouldn’t miss the graphics. Worth a thousand words. And it’s really fun to play around in. A good activity for a Friday.
Just to review, climate change in general is projected to result in more extreme weather - increased precipitation alternating with longer periods of drought, higher levels of humidity, etc. If you’d like to review that major USDA study just out on the impact of climate change on agriculture, click here.
Major findings:
During the past 135 years, the annual temperature in Iowa has increased about two degrees.
The rate of increase in the past 35 years is double the pace of the past 126 years.
Over 135 years there has been a two inch increase in spring rains, and and 1.5 inch decrease in fall rains (increased spring rains can make it harder to get crops in).
Across the Midwest, the annual number of heavy, 24 hour rains has doubled during the past 100 years.
Between 1973 and 2006 in Des Moines, average humidity increased by 7 degrees, because of warmer overall weather.
The lowest temperature estimates for Iowa show that summer temperatures could increase by about 6 degrees.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
CEP: Talk about a great economic development tool for showing renewable manufacturers and businesses that rural NE is open for their business.
Reprinted in full from cattlenetwork.com. CEP added the emphases in bold.
LINCOLN, Neb. — Rural Nebraskans overwhelmingly support aggressive pursuit of renewable forms of energy to resolve the energy crisis, according to the Nebraska Rural Poll. Yet Nebraska is one of 18 states with no standards to require such development.
A majority of respondents to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln poll also reported they believe Americans should reduce their energy consumption, with many saying they already have taken steps to do so.
Rural Nebraskans’ embrace of renewable forms of energy and lifestyle changes may be all the more telling, poll organizers note, since the survey was taken from March, when gas prices averaged about $3.20 per gallon, through May, when they were at $3.75. Now they’re at about $4.
Surveys were mailed to about 6,200 randomly selected households in Nebraska’s 84 rural counties. Results are based on 2,496 responses.
Members of the UNL team that conducts the poll, now in its 13th year, were struck by rural Nebraskans’ strong support for renewable forms of energy – and how out of touch state policy seems to be with that sentiment.
Ninety-one percent agreed or strongly agreed that more should be done to develop such alternative energy sources as ethanol, biodiesel, wind and solar.
“Rural Nebraskans think we ought to be trying everything. We ought to be blending everything together to come up with a reasonable package” to address energy needs, said Randy Cantrell, a rural sociologist with the university’s Rural Initiative and Center for Applied Rural Innovation.
Twenty-eight states have a renewable portfolio standard, which requires electricity providers to obtain a minimum percentage of their power from renewable energy resources by a certain date. Four others have goals in place. Nebraska has neither.
“Nebraska’s own Senator George Norris, who championed the Rural Electrification Act more than 80 years ago, would roll over in his grave at this, because we are not adapting,” said agricultural economist Bruce Johnson.
“It’s a total incongruity,” he added. “Here’s over 90 percent of rural Nebraskans saying we really need to move toward renewable energy and it’s a safe bet that metro-Nebraskans feel the same way. But where are the elected leaders of the state who have hardly begun to move on this?”
One example of obvious, but so far unrealized, growth potential in alternative energy is wind.
“Given that Nebraska is ranked sixth nationally in wind-power potential, this state should be front and center on wind energy development, not just on ethanol production which has sort of fallen into Nebraska’s lap,” Johnson said.
Support for specific forms of alternative energy was strong, as respondents were asked to predict the importance of energy sources for the next generation. Eighty-nine percent said they expected both wind and solar to be important forms of energy. Other energy sources and percentages of those that said they’d be important, included: ethanol from corn, 79 percent; ethanol from other sources, 81 percent; nuclear power, 74 percent; and hydrogen, 66 percent. Even methane – 80 million metric tons of which is produced by livestock each year – is expected to be an important energy source in the future by 55 percent of respondents.
Eighty-seven percent of respondents said they expect oil to continue to be an important source.
Elsewhere in the poll, 77 percent of respondents agreed that Americans need to change their lifestyles to reduce energy consumption; only 10 percent disagreed.
“That’s a huge statement,” Johnson said, especially since it may be more difficult in rural America than elsewhere to make certain lifestyle changes.
As of March, when the poll was taken, poll respondents indicated they already had made some changes in the following ways: cut down luxury household spending, 94 percent; reduce heat or air conditioning use in home, 91 percent; cut amount of driving, 91 percent; attempt to use household appliances more efficiently, 89 percent; cut necessary household spending, 88 percent; acquire more goods and services locally, 80 percent; and shorten or postpone vacation plans, 75 percent.
One finding in the survey might offer a bright spot to some communities, Johnson said. “We may see some revival of rural main streets,” as rural Nebraskans look to buy goods and services closer to home.
Despite the hunger for new energy sources, rural Nebraskans indicated there are some limits. Fifty-seven percent agreed or strongly agreed that the environment should be protected even if that limits energy supplies.
“They’re saying, ‘as important as energy is, we shouldn’t sacrifice the environment,’” Johnson said.
Overall, Johnson said, the poll’s findings may reflect the emergence of a “whole new social movement.” Put another way by Cantrell, energy conservation and development of alternative energy sources, once stereotyped by some as a fringe cause, is becoming a “mom and apple pie issue.”
The development also reflects “the tendency of human beings to wait until there is a crisis” to act, Cantrell added.
The Rural Poll is the largest annual poll of rural Nebraskans’ perceptions on quality of life and policy issues. This year’s response rate was about 40 percent. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent. Complete results are available online at Nebraska Rural Poll.
The university’s Center for Applied Rural Innovation conducts the poll in cooperation with the Rural Initiative with funding from the Partnership for Rural Nebraska and UNL Extension and the Agricultural Research Division in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
blog harvest
January 8, 2008
Just checking out a few climate, energy, ag, and military blogs… over at Agricultural Observatory, they posted an article about how the pending farm bill has big energy implications for farmers. Mostly in terms of biomass. Along those lines, anyone interested in biofuels and policy issues should be reading Nathaniel Green’s Switchboard blog over at NRDC.
Climate Progress has a thought-provoking entry on a recent Univ of Maryland study, which looks at the high economic costs of doing nothing about climate change. If you are interested in climate change adaptation at all (and folks involved in emergency response, etc., this probably means you) follow the link the to study, read the executive summary, and also download the regional summary for the Great Plains (or the Midwest. Like so many maps of these regions, KS flip-flops between the two. For heaven’s sake. I don’t think that particular category is an either/or choice, myself. But bless their hearts the study was done in Maryland.)
And if any of those researchers should happen to find this link 
no, I am actually not a geographical bigot. I just think few people really get Kansas. At times that even includes Kansans, though, so no hard feelings.
Onward with the blog harvest. Sustainablog covers what seems to be a super-cool article about solar in this January’s Scientific American. Quotable: “The magazine proposes a massive, far-reaching plan to get solar power generating 69 percent of America’s electricity 35 percent of our total energy by 2050, thus replacing all of our foreign oil needs and slashing global warming emissions.” If you want to know more about the PV and CSP solar technologies mentioned, see CEP’s solar page.
For folks interested in the nuts and bolts of how to use renewable energies in their homes and daily lives, Mother Earth News covers the best renewable energy books.
And this time none of my milblogs yielded anything about renewables. But sometimes they do.
— Maril Hazlett
Want to know about climate and energy issues in the Midwest (or hey, the Great Plains)? Check out www.climateandenergy.org.
it just makes you feel warm all over
December 14, 2007
New report on the regional impacts of climate change, from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. For the .pdf summary of the impact on the American heartland (ie, us), download here.
I wish I could say it was a chilling read - but sadly, “chilling” is not a word that I have yet found in the report. It focuses specifically on climate change, heat waves, and heat-related illnesses. Summary: the Midwest will probably experience more intense heatwaves of longer duration, in part due to increased high pressure systems in the atmosphere stalling out over this region. Summer daytime and nighttime temperatures will increase.
Unless we adapt - by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and preparing our cities for large-scale emergency management interventions - heat-related deaths will increase as well. These will include heatstroke, as well as aggravation of cardiovascular and respiratory problems. The impact will fall hardest on those living in urban areas - babies and small children, disabled folks, the elderly (especially those living alone), and folks in lower socio-economic categories.
Take a moment. Absorb. Obviously some big-time social justice issues.
O.K. Taking a step back from the data, something that impressed me: Pew picking the Midwest as one of its four case regional studies. We’re pretty important - we provide a lot of food for the U.S. and a good chunk of the world - but we often are overlooked in regional studies of climate change.
At the moment, according to most (but not all) currently available information, it looks as if a large portion of the Midwest will still be capable of some sort of agriculture, at least if we are able to arrest climate change SOON.
However, what exactly those crops will be is less certain. Extreme weather (intense bouts of unseasonable precipitation, alternating with droughts, unseasonable temperature fluctutations, etc.) is hard on crops. Farmers may have to diversify from our major staples of corn, wheat, and soy, just to hedge their bets.
This shift will mess with markets, and it will mess with people - producers, processors, and consumers - on a global scale. That alone is an adaptation scenario well worth considering. Will industrialized agriculture find itself forced to shift toward more decentralized regional models, much as the energy industry is beginning to, with recent increases in renewables? Interesting question.
Wish list: more in-depth research on the impact of climate change on farming, ranching, and water supplies - for both eastern and western Kansas. Our geography and resources are pretty split between two major bioregions.
I do imagine that there is some good stuff out there, but (1) I haven’t found it yet, and/or (2) researchers are currently busting their rears to get the studies done. I should also mention that Pew also has a more general report out on ag, forestry, and carbon policy, a much older one (1999) on ag and climate change (a lot of new research has come out since then), and another on ag’s potential for mitiagating greenhouse gas emissions.
busy weekend re climate change
November 19, 2007
When it rains, it pours - especially with climate change (sorry. that was an awful, awful joke). Quite a list of climate policy action from over the weekend.
Summary, in order: Wow! Yay! Oh boy. Er..?
1. The Midwest Governors Association signed a historic accord (.pdf) on climate policy (ENN), agreeing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Quotable: “The Midwest stands to gain over 289,000 new manufacturing jobs if it makes a real commitment to renewable energy - a far better deal for the environment and the economy than anything on offer from Big Coal.”
2. A federal appeals court rejected the Bush administration’s CAFE standards for light trucks and SUVs, on the basis that the standards did not take into account the environmental impact of their emissions (Reuters).
3. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its fourth and final report (.pdf) on the undeniable trends of climate change, and the urgent need to immediately reduce global greenhouse gas emissions (of which the U.S. produces approximately 25%). The report will be used next month at the summit in Indonesia, where, global policymakers will discuss a climate change treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol (the U.S. has refused to sign the KyP). (NYTimes).
Scientists from the Bush administration also signed off on the report (NPR). Quotable: “Chief U.S. delegate Sharon Hays said doubts have been dispelled. ‘What’s changed since 2001 is the scientific certainty that this is happening.’”
There was indeed controversy among the scientists, however – not as to whether climate change is occurring, but regarding how fast it will occur. Some felt that the report was too conservative, and did not reflect the extent to which climate change is happening more quickly than previously predicted.
4. After a 13-12 vote, the Kansas Energy Council pulled a report on global warming off its webpage (LJWorld). By several accounts, the meeting seems to have been pretty confusing. However, council member Jeff Kennedy, an attorney who represents oil and gas interests, expressed the concern that the information did not accurately reflect KEC’s position on greenhouse gas emissions (earlier this year they voted not to take one).
The KEC also voted to review Sebelius’s participation in the Midwest Governors pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – see item (1) above.
Via Midwestern Governors Association, Sebelius takes a BIG step in combatting climate change
November 15, 2007
Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has signed a historic Midwestern multi-state pact (.pdf) - Midwest Governors Association has announced a regional accord to reduce emissions and establish regional goals and initiatives to achieve energy security and promote renewable energy.
It’s a pretty big deal! Western Governors Association has also signed something similar. Regional leadership is definitely leading the way in this policy arena. Quotable from the press release:
Within the next year, Governors and other participating jurisdictional leaders will establish targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions and complete development of a proposed cap-and-trade system. Indiana, Ohio, and South Dakota are signing the agreement as observers to participate in the formation of the regional cap-and-trade system. Targets will be consistent with the 60 to 80 percent recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Full implementation of the accord will be completed within 30 months.
Schweet. And heck, here’s another quotable: “To support these shared goals, the Midwestern states launched new cooperative regional initiatives to address the following:
- CO2 management to create a regional transportation and storage infrastructure;
- A bioproduct procurement program to support the growth of the region’s bioeconomy;
- Electricity transmission adequacy to support thousands of new megawatts of wind energy;
- Renewable fuels corridors and coordinated signage to promote renewable fuel usage across the Midwest;
- Advanced bioenergy permitting to assist states with the latest technologies; and
- Low-carbon energy transmission infrastructure that will provide a cost-effective way to supply the Midwest with sustainable and environmentally responsible energy.”
