Category Archives: Climate

Mythbusters: Oil Creates Jobs and Makes Us Safer Edition

Mike Specian September 27, 2011 Leave a Comment 4168 Views

Big Oil execs and their political counterparts love to sing the praises of the domestic oil sector. They argue that the industry unleashes “job-creation activity” and will generate up to one million new jobs by 2018, according to the American Petroleum Institute. They argue that increased domestic production will “enhance our energy security” by maximizing the quantity of liquid fuel obtained from “secure” North American sources. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) stated in a GOP weekly radio address, “Tapping our own vast resources will help lower energy costs for Americans, add high-paying jobs to our economy, and strengthen our security for future generations.”

The danger here is that many Big Oil advocates have defended expanded drilling and deregulation in pursuit of jobs and security without realizing that, unfettered, the oil industry will instead pursue its primary goal, profit. In instances where these ideals run counter to each other, “pro-oil” policies intended to create jobs and security can more than just miss their target. They can be directly counterproductive.

Consider a NY Times story published on September 27 (In North Dakota, Flames of Wasted Natural Gas Light the Prairie) which reports that petroleum outfits operating western North Dakota’s Bakken shale field are unintentionally releasing natural gas during the oil extraction process. The industry has claimed that the infrastructure needed to capture the gas is expensive and has chosen to burn it off instead, a process known as flaring. An estimated 30% of all natural gas produced in the state, the annual carbon equivalent of a medium-size coal-fired power plant, is combusted in this manner.

There are no federal regulations against flaring and none are expected any time soon. State governments have greater flexibility, but North Dakota has made no indication that it will act to restrict the process.

Let’s first examine how this fits into Big Oil’s jobs narrative. In the case of the Bakken shale field, petroleum operators have a genuine opportunity to put people back to work creating, transporting, installing, and operating the infrastructure required to capture the available gas reserves. But because collecting these natural gas resources fails to optimize profit, they have opted against it. Now this is not to say that capturing the Bakken field’s natural gas reserves makes the entire enterprise unprofitable. It simply makes it less profitable, and they view this as an unacceptable cost even if it creates jobs.

The simple truth is that the oil industry is not the engine of job growth that many advocates claim it is. Between 2005 and 2010, ExxonMobile, BP, Shell and Chevron combined to reduce their US workforce by 11,200 while simultaneously raking in $546 billion in profits. They, along with ConocoPhillips, followed up that performance in 2010 by shedding another 4,400 jobs amidst profits of $73 billion. They reinvested a paltry 1.2% of their profit in alternative fuels R&D and instead chose to buy back their own stock, enriching their board of directors, senior executives and shareholders in the process.

Then there is the claim that “pro-oil” policies enhance domestic security. In pursuit of greater domestic energy supply, the United States is presently promoting a wide array of risky fossil fuel acquisition projects. The risks are warranted, so the argument goes, because maximizing our domestic supply of liquid-fuel energy is too important to sacrifice.

For example, Congress has failed to pass a single piece of legislative reform in the wake of last year’s Deepwater Horizon disaster (which killed 11 people), yet will allow BP to resume offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. There is no proven method to clean up an oil spill in icy Arctic waters, yet the US has issued leases which will allow Royal Dutch Shell to explore for oil in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea. TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline would pump over 500,000 barrels of highly pressurized tar sands per day straight through the American Heartland (an amount large enough to be “game over” for climate change according to one prominent climate scientist), yet the US government seems primed to approve it despite the risks.

The list goes on, but the essential point is that Big Oil and its government supporters expect Americans to suffer significant environmental and health burdens in defense of maximizing our domestic energy supply. These are public costs worth bearing, they argue (if they chose to acknowledge them at all), in defense of the greater good. Yet when the North Dakota oil firms are presented the opportunity to absorb their fair share of the cost in defense of our natural gas reserves, they balk.

The case of Keystone XL is particularly emblematic of profiteers’ other tactic, blatant distortion of the facts. Cindy Schild, a refinery manager with the American Petroleum Institute, has defended the XL by arguing that “it will be a part of the nation’s energy future” without which “the oil will be shipped to other countries.” What she fails to mention is that a full three-quarters of the tar sands have already been contracted out to five foreign companies and one domestic, Valero, whose business model is geared towards export.

Make no mistake, “job creation” and “energy security” are little more that thinly veiled justifications for policies designed to maximize corporate oil profits. It is this obsession with profit that explains why taxpayers are needlessly lavishing oil companies with tens of billions of dollars in subsidies. It explains why Americans are being placed in danger by weakened environmental standards and by refusals to strengthen pipeline safety rules. It explains why some politicians have even supported shutting down the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s the same reason companies like Exxon deliberately spread misinformation about the veracity of human-driven climate change and why oil billionaires like the Koch brothers support bogus studies discrediting offshore wind farms.

If politicians are truly concerned with creating jobs and increasing security, then the status quo of coarsely and broadly liberalizing the oil industry must be abandoned in favor of narrowly focused policy goals. Require that natural gas in the Bakken field be collected, not flared. Place a price on carbon pollution, which would level the playing field with other emergent sectors critical for energy security, like wind and solar. Empower the Environmental Protection Agency to protect our water and air as much as our energy supply.

Until then, the fact remains that North Dakota is on fire, energy resources are being squandered, jobs lie fallow, and at least two million tons of carbon dioxide are being released into the atmosphere each year. Big Oil will persist in telling us they are interested in creating jobs and preserving security. If only it weren’t a bunch of hot air.

Climate Energy Politics

Do Environmental Regulations Kill Jobs?

Mike Specian September 5, 2011 Leave a Comment 2615 Views

This question was the first sentence from last Sunday’s NY Times article A Debate Arises on Job Creation and Environment. It’s particularly timely as environmentalists and conservatives/business interests have been battling ferociously over issues like the Keystone XL pipeline, ozone regulations, and the very existence of the EPA. Environmental proponents contend these regulations protect health, business productivity, and a sustainable environment for future growth. Their opponents contend these rules impose onerous business expenses and can lead to lost jobs and even the closure of facilities.

But who’s right? Apparently, no one knows! It’s striking to me that many government regulations are issued, but not followed-up on. From the NY Times article,

“Regulations are put on the books and largely stay there unexamined,” said Michael Greenstone, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “This is part of the reason that these debates about regulations have a Groundhog’s Day quality to them.”

Are the regulations having their intended effect? Are there unintended consequences, and if so, how costly are they? Can the rules be improved?

During my time working as a Fellow at the National Academy of Sciences, I came across a number of ostensibly “boring” studies of how several Department of Energy research programs were progressing. Dull reading perhaps, but perpetual assessment and refinement of policy should be an absolute requirement of sound government.

In that spirit, I want to summarize the benefits and costs of environmental regulations presented in this article and others alongside some evidence to support those positions.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST REGULATION

Too expensive to implement in a depressed economy
High cost of clean-up can cause factories to close or relocate abroad
Can lead to a loss of jobs

ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF REGULATION

Numerous health benefits including reduced infant mortality and instances of autism, better health of children and the elderly, increased life spans, reductions in the number of hospitalizations, and other health benefits
Increase housing prices (e.g. lack of regulation makes living next to coal plants more hazardous than living next to nuclear plants)
Improve quality of life by maintaining a pristine environment with breathable air and clean ecosystems
Complying with regulations requires new job-creating projects and technologies that become less expensive over time as the the clean-tech sectors mature
Rules set far in advance can guide new investments; e.g. when choosing new technology, businesses will choose the greener one even if the initial cost is slightly greater
Preferable in down economies to invest in upgrades rather than sit on cash

But good golly there’s a lot of tit-for-tat. Environmentalists claim that regulation is often the scapegoat for poor economic performance caused by other factors, such as low demand, poor tax and labor policies, and inadequate communication and transportation infrastructure. They argue the costs of regulation are almost always exaggerated.

For example, the electric utility industry warned that amendments to the EPA’s Clean Air Act would cost $7.5 billion and tens of thousands of jobs but studies have shown the cost of the program to be closer to $1 billion and even suggested the law was a modest net creator of jobs by spurring new clean compliance technologies. And while the cement industry projected 13,000 lost jobs and plant closures because of stricter sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide standards, EPA analysis claims the truth lies somewhere between 600 jobs lost and 1300 gained.

Even if the regulations are net beneficial, is implementing them now (i.e. in a down economy) the right thing to do? Business leaders argue that regardless of whichever and whenever regulations are enacted, there must be stability and predictability. They cannot be a “moving target.”

Some business leaders at least appear willing to strike a fair balance. Spencer Weitman, president of the National Cement Company of Alabama has stated, “we agree that we need to protect the environment and we need regulations in place to make sure that we all do it right. That’s not the argument that we’re coming up with. We do need regulations that are achievable and that make sense.” The CEO of Caesars Entertainment has agreed to go green even if it means taking a slight economic loss.

What seems lost in this discussion, as always, is climate change, which I personally believe is the greatest existential crisis than humanity has ever faced (with the possible exception of nuclear proliferation). Its long-term impacts on heat waves, agricultural yields, water availability, ecosystem vitality and sustainability, health, energy demand, transportation infrastructure, losses due to extreme weather, rising sea levels, forced migrations, violent conflict, etc. that will be forced irreversibly on future generations for hundreds to thousands of years decisively tilt the scales towards regulation. Which regulations, however, may yet require deeper assessment.

Climate Energy Politics

How to Make the World Run Forever (alternate title: how to kill Kit Kat in 3 easy steps)

Mike Specian August 2, 2011 Leave a Comment 3355 Views

Despite its ample inventory of successful consumer offerings, Apple’s growth is unsustainable. And no, I’m not referring to the eventual departure of CEO Steve Jobs or the challenges it faces from its competitors. I’m referencing its corporate culture, one which it shares with many other firms. It builds great products every few months, markets them effectively, and sells them in great numbers. Endless, frequent, addictive updates of laptops, tablet PCs, cell phones, portable music players: you name it, they sell it, we trash it.

According to the EPA, each year Americans dispose of nearly 200 million computers, televisions, and portable devices. Less than 10% of our mobile devices are recycled, leaving tons of gold, copper, silver, iridium and other materials to go to waste. This is beginning to impose steep costs. Stagnant supply growth in the copper market, for example, has contributed to its more than quadrupling in price since 2003. As Jeremy Grantham, the founder and chief strategist of the asset-management firm GMO, puts it, metals “are entropy at work.” As we continue to senselessly discard our resources, prices “will slowly increase forever,” imposing tight ceilings on growth.

The problem is far from limited to electronics manufacturers. The same argument can be made for petroleum outfits who pedal a finite supply of fuel, coal companies whose product releases unsustainable levels of greenhouse gas emissions, and packagers who overwrap products with materials that are discarded immediately after purchase.

The common condition is that many businesses operate under the myth that they have access to unlimited resources, aren’t connected to nature, and have no role with respect to sustainability overall. Annie Leonard’s short film The Story of Stuff does an excellent job illustrating this fact through a dissection of the contemporary industrial supply chain.

Disrupting the current system is not impossible, but it does require a new vision of corporate responsibility. This is likely not a trivial task. Changing business as usual requires a willingness to modify all aspects of business operations.

This involves a full paradigm shift which goes beyond even the exemplary goal of reaching a carbon-neutral society. The transition will require a careful study of regenerative systems as exemplified by aspects of the so-called “circular economy,” in which products are not simply ends in and of themselves, but reusable catalysts for growth. Conventional recycling of papers, plactics, glass, etc. and limits on overfishing are representative cases, but other less conventional examples exist. Appliance Recycling Centers of America for example, a Minneapolis-based appliance disposal company financed by GE, has constructed a multi-million dollar machine capable of dismantling and separating old refrigerators destined for the landfill into piles of metal, plastic, and foam which can then be resold.

Some companies are taking positive steps towards sustainability when the moves make financial sense. Walmart adopted energy efficiency targets in 2005 and now claims to be saving over $200m a year on transport fuel alone. Mining interests are using solar panels to avoid the infrastructure costs of building conventional power lines to remote locations. Ikea is getting involved as well as – get this – aWales coal museum. Increased likelihood of droughts and other forms of resource scarcity are viewed by many business leaders to be a growing threat.

These examples notwithstanding, sustainable practices are often ignored when they fail to benefit a company’s bottom line, especially in cases where executives are more highly rewarded for a company’s short term profits than its long term health. Unfortunately, the general public often suffers the consequences. Natural gas providers still operate with relative immunity despite that their fracking process releases toxins into waterways. Power companies which emit carbon dioxide contribute to ocean acidification, a cost they do not bear directly but which will permanently disrupt aquatic ecosystems and food chains.

Absent financial incentives or government regulations, firms are unlikely to address sustainability on their own unless prompted by their customers and shareholders. Fortunately, this barrier is surmountable. Approximately 2 billion people worldwide are engaged in some form of social media. While global prices for raw materials are increasing, the costs of communication and social networking are decreasing. Our collective ability to affect change is gigantic.

Take, for example, the campaign launched by Greenpeace against the food giant Nestle out of concern that the company was purchasing palm oil, an ingredient in many of its products, from firms responsible for the unsustainable destruction of tropical rain forests in Indonesia and elsewhere. A Greenpeace video showing a baby orangutan being pulled from his mother’s arms into trashing equipment went viral. Protesters bombarded an online Kit Kat page prompting Nestle to issue promises to abandon purchases from firms engaging in those activities.

Ultimately, in a smaller and connected world, the power to bend the corporate curve towards sustainability lies with all of us. Now, if only someone can build an app for that.

Climate Energy Photography

David Byrne’s Brand New Cycling Music Video

Mike Specian July 31, 2011 Leave a Comment 2878 Views

On July 28-29 I attended the 2011 International Green Energy Economy Conference. The proceedings were mostly interesting and I intend to post some of my thoughts early next week. However, I didn’t want to wait to get this up.

At the conclusion of the conference on Friday, we were given a “special treat” courtesy of David Byrne, the former lead singer of Talking Heads. In addition to being an artist par excellence, David is also an avid cyclist. He wrote and arranged the following video, which is a “poem to the bicycle and the people who ride them.” As far as I can tell, this video isn’t available anywhere else online. Enjoy.

Climate Politics

Addressing the Claim That Climate Change Researchers are Only in it for the Grant Money

Mike Specian July 1, 2011 Leave a Comment 3271 Views

As a scientist myself (or at least an apprentice), it utterly confounds me when climate deniers argue that scientists only pretend to believe in climate change because their research grants depend on it. These arguments are not only slanderous, but expose a deep misunderstanding of how scientists receive funding.

In general, there are two classes of scientist, public and private. Public scientists are paid a salary through government institutions like NASA or NOAA. As laid out in yesterday’s comments from James Hansen, these scientists are compensated regardless of the outcome of their research, thus there exists no financial incentive to skew results one way or the other.

Private climate scientists are often employed by universities and must actively seek out research funding. One potential source is our nation’s collection of federal science agencies. There are many, but one of the most prominent is the National Science Foundation, an agency which supports about 20% of all federally funded basic research conducted in US universities. Its funding process is typical of agencies of this kind, so I’ll discuss its allocation process in greater detail.

Scientists may apply for research grants by first submitting a research proposal. According to NSF criteria, successful proposals must demonstrate that their prospective research be of high academic quality, have high and hopefully broad significance, and preferably be transformative. Proposals are merit-reviewed by a panel of independent experts in the field and the top submissions receive grants to continue their work. This process is highly competitive. Of the approximately 45,000 proposals received each year, the NSF only funds about 11,500.

One thing you’ll notice is that research into a plausible alternative theory to human-driven climate change satisfies all of these criteria. Given that 97% of climate scientists currently agree with the conclusion that global climate change is occurring and is caused by human activity, a plausible alternative theory clearly constitutes a great scientific advancement, one which would generate waves in many other fields. So not only are climate deniers not penalized in the grant process, if their proposals demonstrate legitimate scientific merit they might actually receive preferential treatment.

There are other factors which serve to support climate deniers. First, any scientist who can debunk a scientific paradigm (as Einstein did with his general theory of relativity) in favor of a better theory will earn prestige and his name in science textbooks. This is a huge incentive. Second, if a professor has tenure, then he needn’t fear reprisal from his employer should his research cut across the grain. Third, because review panels are comprised of a broad selection of experts, one can expect a representative plurality of opinions to be held by appropriators, which mitigates consensus groupthink. Fourth, scientists are skeptical by nature. They assume their knowledge is incomplete and are always acting to refine it. Scientists will tell you that one of the most exciting events for them is when an experimental result completely defies theoretical expectation. It is in these moments that new truths are often revealed. Scientists yearn for these moments; they do not penalize the search for them.

The final point I’ll make about the public grant process is simple common sense. It’s functionally impossible for allocators to only fund “pro-climate change” research when the results of that research are unknown until it’s conducted! And even if you think all proposals coming in tacitly acknowledge anthropogenic global climate change a priori, meta-publication data gathered by Skeptical Scientist reveals that approximately half of climate research papers do not explicitly endorse the consensus opinion, but rather function primarily as fact-finding missions. Those missions in total have created the consensus opinion, but scientists did not have to assume it before receiving their funding.

The other method by which private scientists obtain research support is by courting private donors and corporations who have a vested interest in it. For lots of basic research, this process of pitching for funds is a huge hassle. As the famous Microsoft computer scientist and Turing Award winner Jim Gray once put it, “Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs before one turns into a prince.”

Except sometimes the prince comes to you. Because climate change requires corrective actions, corporations that stand to lose in the transition have a strong incentive to spread misinformation themselves or fund others willing to do so. This is a clear example of climate deniers’ arguments working against them. There are many examples of scientists who receive funding because they reject the consensus opinion. In fact, research from the Global Warming Policy Foundation has found that in an analysis of 900 papers supporting climate change skepticism, 90% of the authors were linked to ExxonMobil.

At the end of the day you ultimately need to ask yourself which is more likely: that A) 97% of all scientists have independently come together to collectively pull the wool over the world’s eyes and perpetrate the greatest scientific hoax of all time for unclear motives or B) moneyed interests like oil and coal companies who stand to lose profit in a world that addresses climate change are spreading disinformation to forestall action.

Given the current condition of media coverage in the United States, it’s not surprising that so much skewed information abounds. First, many media agencies like newspapers release dedicated science reporters as margins grow thinner. Second, the media often mistakes balance with “hearing all side of an issue.” Granting climate deniers equal air time with members of the 97% majority would be like presenting the opinions of a Auschwitz survivor alongside someone who argues the Holocaust never happened. Third, the media (television and radio especially) has an incentive to create conflict for ratings.

Ultimately, though, scientists owe it to themselves and to the general public to lift the haze of confusion that surrounds their work. The public ought to know how its tax dollars are being spent, the valuable research it supports, and the mechanism by which scientists are funded. Combining this with greater knowledge about the skeptical nature of the scientific process would go a long way towards exposing scientific partially, greed, and impropriety as the myth that it is.

Aside: If you liked this article, please repost it! It would be a shame if only 3 people got to read it. Thanks!

Climate Politics

A Message to Those Who Have Threatened to Kill Climate Scientists

Mike Specian June 30, 2011 1 Comment 2965 Views

I’m generally not a fan of reposting others’ content, but I found this so compelling that I had to share. As I was reading through the assimilated works of Climate Progress, I came across some statements made by NASA’s premiere climatologist, James Hansen. While these remarks were made in December 2009, in light of the death threats leveled against Australian climate scientists recently they are particularly timely. He wrote:

I am now inundated with broad FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests for my correspondence, with substantial impact on my time and on others in my office. I believe these to be fishing expeditions, aimed at finding some statement(s), likely to be taken out of context, which they would attempt to use to discredit climate science”¦. The input data for global temperature analyses are widely available, on our web site and elsewhere. If those input data could be made to yield a significantly different global temperature change, contrarians would certainly have done that ”” but they have not.

Harassment like this has even prompted a strongly worded reply from AAAS yesterday (American Association for the Advancement of Science) who wrote, in part:

We are deeply concerned by the extent and nature of personal attacks on climate scientists. Reports of harassment, death threats, and legal challenges have created a hostile environment that inhibits the free exchange of scientific findings and ideas and makes it difficult for factual information and scientific analyses to reach policymakers and the public. This both impedes the progress of science and interferes with the application of science to the solution of global problems.

Scientists and policymakers may disagree over the scientific conclusions on climate change and other policy-relevant topics. But the scientific community has proven and well-established methods for resolving disagreements about research results. Scientists should not be subjected to fraud investigations or harassment simply for providing scientific results that are controversial. The scientific community takes seriously its responsibility for policing research misconduct, and extensive procedures exist to protect the rigor of the scientific method and to ensure the credibility of the research enterprise. Moreover, we are concerned that establishing a practice of aggressive inquiry into the professional histories of scientists whose findings may bear on policy in ways that some find unpalatable could well have a chilling effect on the willingness of scientists to conduct research that intersects with policy-relevant scientific questions.

The implication of these threats is that climatologists are lying or fudging their data to achieve some personal end. One outrageous claim often bandied about is that scientists publish results affirming human-caused climate change just so they can get more research dollars. Arguments like these can only be made by people who have no idea how the scientific funding process actually works. I could go off on my own rant here, but I’m going to lift again from James Hansen who wrote the following in an open letter to the Prime Minister of New Zealand:

BTW, do you really believe that scientists make up or exaggerate global warming to get research funds? Our salaries do not depend on how much research the government funds. Government scientists get paid for working 40 hours a week, regardless of how long they work. My wife claims it is about 90 hours a week, but I say about 80. If you succeed in getting the government to cut back on science, because you don’t like the results, the main effect will be erosion of our competiveness relative to other nations. Your hounding of scientists does not bother me, but it may discourage young people from entering the profession, contributing to a national spiral into second or third rate technical and economic status. Perhaps, instead of questioning the motives of scientists, you should turn around and check the interests (motives) of the people who have pushed you to become so agitated.

I couldn’t have put it any better.

Climate Politics

Why Facts Will Not Convince People of Climate Change

Mike Specian June 1, 2011 Leave a Comment 3788 Views

In an earlier post, I wrote what I thought was a reasoned and well-researched response to some common misconceptions about climate change. The reply I received was hostile in tone:

The claim that both liberals and conservatives politicize the climate change debate is disingenuous at best. It it the liberals who are fomenting hysteria and using distortion and outright LIES to push their agenda which is establishing soc…ialism and destroying capitalism.

It is unambiguously clear that climate change has become politicized. Generally speaking, in the United States Democrats acknowledge climate change is happening and driven by human activity while Republicans, and the Tea Party in particular, do not. But how is this possible? How is it that one’s political affiliation, which is really a statement of preferences, values, and morals, can dictate which facts they choose to accept. Facts are facts, right?

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Research done at Yale Law School’s Cultural Cognition Project reveals that people disagree “sharply and persistently about facts on which expert scientists largely agree.” To quote from their research:

“Scientific opinion fails to quiet societal dispute on such issues not because members of the public are unwilling to defer to experts but because culturally diverse persons tend to form opposing perceptions of what experts believe. Individuals systematically overestimate the degree of scientific support for positions they are culturally predisposed to accept as a result of a cultural availability effect that influences how readily they can recall instances of expert endorsement of those positions.”

As evidence in support of this conclusion, here is more from the reply I received to my last post:

The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich made many predictions, NONE of which came true. Then the parade of Hollywood celebrities, such as Ted Dansen who appeared on the Johnny Carson show sometime in the ’80’s, claiming somewhat hysterically that if we didn’t do something, the oceans would be dead by the early 1990’s. The oceans aren’t dead. In the early 1990’s, one of the actesses in Head of the Class (Khrystyne Haje) did an hour special that aired on the Disney Channel detailing the “rain forests” of Brazil. She claimed that a certain number of acres per second were being burned, the the number seemed high to me, so I wrote it down and looked up the square acreage of Brazil, and ran the numbers. According to my math, the ENTIRE country of Brazil, including cities, lakes and rivers would have been burned down in about 3 and a half years. Brazil is still unburnt. I could go on, but we all know of examples of this kind of hysteria equivalent to “the sky is falling.”

Clearly, this person has an entire collection of facts at her disposal and she is not afraid to wield them. However, nowhere in her reply did she directly respond to any of the 18 separate citations I provided. Because these references were coming from me, an untrustworthy and potentially antagonistic source, she was less likely to embrace them.

Here’s another example from the reply to my post:

And then there’s the scandal of faking data that was uncovered last year. Even scientists can be motivated to lie. More government money, job security, prestige, face time on TV, it can all be very seductive.

She’s referencing the controversy surrounding climate scientists at the University of East Anglia last year where in an email a scientist suggested using a “trick” to “hide the decline” while other scientists ridiculed climate change skeptics. For those predisposed to reject the veracity of climate change, these are damning pieces of evidence.

The question is whether or not those same individuals equally weighted the reports that largely exonerated East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit including those from House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee, an independent science assessment panel, Penn State University, and the US’s Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Commerce.

The simple truth is that as human beings we preferentially seek out news and opinions that coincide with our world views. For liberals this might mean watching The Daily Show as opposed to Bill O’Reilly. For conservatives it might involve favoring The Drudge Report over The Huffington Post.

But when it comes to critically important issues like pollution, the deficit, gun control, climate change, etc. we have an obligation to overcome our baser natures and commit ourselves to objective study. For my part, I have read and carefully considered all manner of arguments both supporting and denying climate change (see, e.g., this post) and have come to an inescapable conclusion: climate change is real and it is almost certainly being caused by human activity. My only hope is that others take a critical look at their own prejudices and do the same.

Climate

Climate Deniers Claim Liberals Don’t Understand Their Arguments – I Present Their Points and My Response

Mike Specian May 28, 2011 1 Comment 4024 Views

A friend of mine forwarded me a conversation that one of her friends was having on her Facebook wall. I include some of her points below:

SPEAKER A: Global warming is a natural phenomenon, much like summer versus winter. There have been warming periods historically (the late Dark Ages, Early Middle Ages during the Viking Expansion), and there have been cooling periods (such as the 17th …Century). Man did not cause them and is not causing it now. We can’t fix it. It will fix itself. We don’t have to embrace socialism to escape what is in reality a natural cycle. The sky isn’t falling.

SPEAKER B: The global warming proponents (the smart ones at least) don’t deny the cyclical nature of the earth’s temperature – however, they believe that human factors have sped up the warming cycle. Just like the liberals think that the “denialists” are denying that the earth is warming at all. The only intelligent debate is the extent of the human impact (if any) on these natural cycles.

SPEAKER A: The problem I have with them is that it seems that socialism and other coercive plans are the only fixes that they will entertain. I’m not against common sense things, such as cleaning up the environment and trying to find cleaner fuels/technology. But a lot of them use hysteria and outright lying to advance their agenda. That’s despicable.

SPEAKER B: True. My only point is that in the heat of the debate, both sides appear to misrepresent what the other is arguing.

Let’s first clear up the science. Evidence indicates that Earth experiences an Ice Age every 100,000 years or so, a cycle I will refer to as “slow climate change.” Scientists have also discovered that a higher amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (usually measured in parts-per-million, or ppm) is very tightly correlated with a higher average planetary temperature. During the Ice Ages, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 on our frigid planet was approximately 180ppm. Immediately preceding the Industrial Revolution, when temperatures were 8°C warmer, CO2 levels were closer to 280ppm.

The factors responsible for slow climate change are complicated and involve continental drift, the amount of land mass near the poles (which changes as a result of plate tectonics), a form of heat transfer between the poles and the equator known as the thermohaline, the amount of global snowcover, and the overall albedo (or reflective-ness) of the Earth.

So reflect on this for a moment: the difference in CO2 concentrations between Ice Ages (180ppm) and preindustrial times (280ppm) is 100ppm. To visualize, imagine splitting the air into 10,000 separate packets containing all the gases of the atmosphere like nitrogen, oxygen, and so on. In the mid-1800’s 3 of those 10,000 packets were carbon dioxide. During the Ice Ages, 2 were. In other words, a change in CO2 concentration as small as 1 part in 10,000 is the difference between Earth as we know it and an Ice Age.

Today, as a result of human activity, the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere is 390ppm (about 4 packets), higher than it’s been for at least one million years. So if 2 packets equals an Ice Age and 3 packets equals modern times, what happens now that Earth is passing 4 packets and approaching 5? As I detail below, all of Earth’s systems change and in most cases, for the worst.

The other crucial point is that Earth’s transition from 280ppm to 390ppm has occurred in only about 150 years. So while slow climate change happens over hundreds of millennia, this new “fast climate change” is occurring in a just a few generations. This is not nearly enough time for ecosystems to adapt and is one of the reasons the Earth is in the midst of the largest extinction since that which killed off the dinosaurs. This is substantially different than the “natural” climate change to which people often refer.

That climate can change both slowly due to natural processes and quickly due to human activity should not come as a surprise. Anything that causes the planet to gain or lose significant amounts of heat can lead to a changing climate. The science is quite simple. Organic matter like oil, coal, and trees contain carbon. When those are burned or left to decay that CO2 is released into the atmosphere. As simple experiments can show, carbon dioxide traps heat. As more CO2 accumulates in the air, the planet warms. The fundamental science is really just that simple. To argue that climate varies slowly and “naturally” over long time scales is correct, but to argue that it ONLY varies “naturally” over long time scales is not.

The other argument I often hear is that the Earth’s climate will simply fix itself; it always has and it always will. However, this is merely an assertion with no scientific backing behind it. What the argument ignores is that 1) historically this healing process has typically required thousands of years and 2) given the extremely fast rate at which our climate is changing, there is no guarantee the old models still apply.

The real problem is that unlike some things like sulfates which remain airborne for only a couple years, CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years. Scientists have been carefully tracking carbon dioxide levels since the 1950’s and have found that the concentration has increased more rapidly during the last 60 years than during any other time period in the geological record.

The objection that I have to these comments atop the page is that the word “liberals” is brought into it. These scientific results have absolutely nothing to do with politics. Anyone who introduces it into a climate discussion is viewing the science with an eye towards political ideology, and that is dangerous on both sides. There are many reasons why people deny that climate change is happening. Some dislike the solutions, which involve mitigation of emissions or other actions interpreted as part of a “socialist takeover.” Others view the problem as so intractable that denial is the only sane option. But again, the range of proposed solutions should have absolutely nothing to do the veracity of the science.

The other major area of contention is how big a problem this is. I suppose this is debatable depending on what you find important. If you study the potential impacts, the results are rather frightening. In the last few years we’ve seen massive storms, floods, wildfires, and droughts, once in 100- to 1000-year type events that are all happening simultaneously. The seas are rising and there are already climate refuges who have been forced to vacate their islands. The ocean is acidifying leading to toxic algae blooms and the death of coral reefs, which supply fish to large numbers of people. More dangerously, rising temperatures threaten water supplies by hastening spring melts and lowering the quantity of water stored over the winter. Record high temperatures will kill crops and raise food prices (Russia lost 1/6 of its yield last summer as a result), worsen air quality and cause deleterious health effects. Such outcomes often lead to instability, violence, and breed hotbeds of terrorist activity.

Even if you are not convinced that humans are primarily responsible for driving current global climate change, a lot of really smart people who’ve spent much of their lives studying this issue are. If they are wrong and we take significant (but ultimately unnecessary) corrective actions, the worst-case scenario is that mitigation wastes money, damages the economy, and causes job losses. But if the scientists are right and we do nothing, the worst-case scenario is that we irreversibly ruin the planet’s ability to provide sustainable habits, water, food, and ecosystems for at least thousands of years. One set of outcomes is bad, but the other is catastrophic.

To use an analogy, consider the purchase of fire insurance for one’s home. Although the probability of fire is low, if one did occur, failure to have taken appropriate precautionary measures would have been a devastating mistake. This is the essence of risk, which is measured as the product of the probability of an event with the cost of that event. A situation becomes increasingly risky as a negative outcome grows more likely or as the cost of that outcome rises. Given that the probability of negative climate outcomes is exceptionally high (possibly at 100%) and the potential costs are incalculable, inaction on climate change is, without exaggeration, the riskiest behavior humanity has ever taken. For honestly open-minded people who accept that maybe, just maybe, the other side is right, the conclusion is inescapable: we must act to mitigate global climate change and we must do so now.

Climate

Orange County Out-Dumbs Itself

Mike Specian May 19, 2011 Leave a Comment 3543 Views

I just wanted to add quick comments about this story coming out of Orange County, CA where an AP class addressing global climate change now requires instructors to teach opposing views on “controversial issues.”

http://www.ocregister.com/news/-300559–.html?cb=1305440000

1. I’m tired of all this “we need to provide a balanced view” nonsense. “Balance” does not imply that every idea receive equal time. It demands that ideas receive weight proportional to their merit. When 97% of scientists and every major reputable scientific organization in the world has adopted a uniform conclusion, during a 70 hour course an instructor should mention the opposition point for less than 30 minutes. That’s true balance.

2. Denial of climate change lies predictably along party lines. Denial of science based on party affiliation is an instantiation of the denial of facts based on a philosophical position. Such judgments do not belong in a science classroom.

3. This sets a precedent that all controversies must be taught. This means that a group of loudmouths can start spouting off nonsense like Obama is a secret Muslim or the federal government brought down the Twin Towers and schools would now be required to introduce that into the classroom because a “controversy” exists. This is ridiculous. We cannot honestly be that stupid, can we?

4. This actually dilutes the meaning of “controversial science”, which involves multiple theories striving to be adopted into a scientific paradigm. Human driven climate change is not controversial science. The real explanation for dark energy or the balance between quantum mechanics and general relativity are controversial scientific issues.

Climate

Green Roofs in New York City May Be an Effective Adaptation to Flooding

Mike Specian May 19, 2011 Leave a Comment 3510 Views

In her book The Weather of the Future, climatologist Heidi Cullen describes the impacts of global climate change on New York City. She focuses in part on the city’s aging and mostly immutable sewage infrastructure. Since sewage water and storm water use the same pipes, the system is more vulnerable to above-normal flooding, i.e. the kinds anticipated from greater rainfall and more forceful tidal surges. She writes:

When it’s not raining, sewage treatment plants can handle all the sewage and clean it up. But when it rains, the vast amount of rainwater that goes into the sewers exceeds their capacity, so some of it has to be released into the rivers untreated. If rainfall becomes more intense-as observed data and climate models suggest will happen-the sewer system could be overwhelmed. That would result in more flooding of streets and basements, and more untreated waste would enter rivers.

Last year’s catastrophic floods in Pakistan and this spring’s historic flooding along the Mississippi River lends visible credulity to the future impacts of flooding. But if the sewage infrastructure of NYC can’t reasonably be modified, how does the city keep from going underwater?

The answer may be green roofs. A study released by Colombia University in January reveals that converting NYC’s 1 billion square feet of roofs into green roofs would divert more than 10 billion gallons of water per year from the sewage system. The vegetation retains 30% of the water that falls on it, then releases it back into the atmosphere as vapor. The heat required to vaporize the liquid is drawn from either the building or the sun, which in either case cools the building and lowers its energy bill. The study estimates the cost of maintaining a green roof means that they could divert a gallon of water for only 2 cents per year.