If Global CO2 Emissions Were Black Smoke Coming From a Giant Broken Pipe in Texas

Watching the video of the BP oil gusher bleeding into the Gulf of Mexico, I got thinking about how this imagery (and all the heart-wrenching photos of oiled wildlife) makes the problem so real and easy to comprehend.  We get it, and it makes us sick.

One of the widely-discussed problems with the public's acceptance of the science underlying global weirding is that the heat-trapping gases that are disrupting the climate are invisible.  Plus, these heat-trapping pollutants come from so many different places -- cars, trucks, buses, inefficient homes and buildings, industrial processes, deforestation, landfills, you name it -- that their flow into the atmosphere and their impact on the earth's climate and people is hard to "see".

Which leads me to a question: if all the Earth's heat-trapping pollution was colored black and came from a giant broken pipe in the middle of, say, Dallas, (1) how big in diameter would the pipe have to be, and (2) how long would it take for the plume of black smoke to spread from Dallas to other major metropolitan areas around the world?

If somebody with graphic design skills could put together this kind of computerized imagery, it would be powerful stuff...
...

20-Year Veteran of Coast Guard Comments on BP's Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

Catching up on reading about the oil spill tonight, I enjoyed this post at ClimateProgress by sociologist and Coast Guard Veteran, Dr. Robert J. Brulle:

So now what?  I had hoped that we were beyond this sort of event.  But evidently we aren’t.

In the face of global climate change, and now massive catastrophic oil spills, why can’t we figure out that the fossil fuel era needs to come to an end, for our survival, and for the survival of the rest of the species with which we share this planet?  That we have much better alternatives than to continuing to “drill baby drill” – which has now turned into “spill baby spill.”  That we cannot drill our way to energy independence, and that every gallon of gas we burn brings the prospect of further ecological calamities from global warming closer.

We need a real commitment to renewable energy, and to stop investing in the polluting fuels of the past.  The sooner we get on with it, the less chance our children will have to face future disasters.

Indeed...

Some are now saying oil could rise to over $100/barrel this summer due to the heating economy and possible speculation in the oil market stemming from this spill.

I say bring it on.

It's probably exactly what the doctor ordered for Congress to pass climate change and clean energy legislation that is bolder and more effective than the yawner of a bill put forth by Senators Lieberman, Graham, and Kerry.

Of course, $100 doesn't even come close to reflecting the true cost of a barrel of oil...(this link is to an article by an Iraq war veteran)

Read more>>
...

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Catastrophe: This Doesn't Happen With Clean Energy

As I've watched the Gulf of Mexico oil spill unfold over the last few days, a few thought have come to mind.

First, a note to God-fearing opponents of the bold climate change and clean energy legislation that will also help us deal with the looming Peak Oil crisis: watching the recent deadly coal mine disaster, quickly followed by this catastrophically costly, headline-grabbing (likely for weeks to come) offshore oil drilling disaster, does it seem kinda like The Lord is pissed about our dirty energy use?

It hasn't been a very good month for those raping Mother Earth for the dirty energy sources that are destabilizing the global climate system, threatening humanity's food and water supplies.

Second, how ironic that this oil spill catastrophe is going to hit the hardest economically in the deep southern U.S., the heart of political support for "Drill Baby Drill!"

The good news, especially given that the Senate is about to start debate on Climate Change and Clean Energy legislation: this type of disaster just doesn't happen with solar or wind power.

Sure, it's going to take a LOT of work and energy (and even fossil fuel use) to transition to clean energy.  But we CAN have energy without these deadly, catastrophically costly, economically destabilizing and toxic risks posed by fossil fuels.

Best of all, the building, installation, sales, administration, transport, you name it of all this clean energy infrastructure is going to create the millions of new jobs our economy badly needs.  They are good jobs that will make people proud -- coming with the badge of honor that they have joined the clean energy revolution that is freeing America from our addiction to dirty oil and other fossil fuels.

Now it's up to Congress to make it happen and unleash the tsunami of clean energy technology investment that's been waiting on the sidelines for the rules of the game to be established.

Let's play ball, and play to win.
...

Climate Change Water Shortages Emerging: Bolivian Villagers Forced to Relocate as Glaciers, Water Supplies Disappear

Here's a preview of an impact of climate disruption that we can expect to see become far more common in the years to come:

For the Incas, and most of the Andean civilisations, snow-capped mountains were divinities to be honoured, as they supplied water.

But now it seems those gods are losing their powers. Researchers say that the glaciers are in dramatic retreat across the Andes due to rising temperatures.

We are very worried because we have no water. Half the people of this community have already left. Those who remain are struggling with the lack of water," says Max, an elderly Aymara Indian who chews coca leaves as he speaks in heavily-accented Spanish.

For the indigenous people of Khapi everything depends on the streams flowing through their land. The waters, which they consider sacred, keep their animals alive and allow their crops to flourish.

But over the past 10 or 15 years, changing weather patterns have led to irregular water flows - the streams become torrents or dwindle to just trickles.

"The weather has drastically changed and it is now two or three times hotter than it was. We cannot water our crops and the sun and the heat are very strong. Our crops are dry now, our animals are dying; we want to cry," Max says, before asking their Andean goddess, Pachamama or Mother Earth, for help.

 It won't be long before we start seeing things like this happen in the U.S. and other developed countries.  Do we really want to wait until we "get it" -- painfully -- before we take action?

Read more>>
...

Scientists Call for Research on Climate Link to Geological Hazards

I've blogged about this highly speculative, yet eye-opening area of research before -- most recently after the Haiti earthquake.

Now, interestingly, top scientists are calling for further research:

Richard Betts, a climate modeller at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, said: "This is a new area of academic research with potentially interesting implications. It was previously assumed there was no link at all between climate change and these events, but it is possible to speculate that climate change might make some more likely. If we do get large amounts of climate change in the long term then we might see some impacts."

He said there was no evidence that current levels of global warming were influencing events such as last week's earthquake in China that killed hundreds of people and the volcanic eruption in Iceland that grounded flights across Europe.

Experts say global warming could affect geological hazards such as earthquakes because of the way it can move large amounts of mass around on the Earth's surface. Melting glaciers and rising sea levels shift the distribution of huge amounts of water, which release and increase pressures through the ground.

These pressure changes could make ruptures and seismic shifts more likely. Research from Germany suggests that the Earth's crust can sometimes be so close to failure that tiny changes in surface pressure brought on my heavy rain can trigger quakes. Tropical storms, snowfall and shifting tides have all been linked to shifts in seismic activity.

Wow -- fascinating.  Certainly can't hurt to learn more about how these processes and triggers might work as the world warms...

Read more>>
...

Google Climate Chief: Price on Carbon Will Be Economic Bright Spot

In about a week, the new Senate climate change and clean energy bill is apparently going to be released by Senators Graham, Kerry and Lieberman.  You can be as certain as the sun's rise and set that we'll immediately hear a chorus of such blather as "it's going to wreck the economy" and "we can't pass an environmental bill like this during an economic downturn -- it will cost too much."

Nonsense, says Google's climate change and clean energy chief, Dan Reicher, in this Grist article:

Google is thinking about the big global picture. Reicher told me that, "in general terms, a carbon price will do a lot to advance the competitiveness of these technologies that offer serious climate reductions, help for our energy security, increase our domestic fuels, and can create all sorts of jobs."

But the search-engine-plus is also thinking about its own bottom line. It's already got products on the market that help consumers save electricity.

As Reicher puts it, "putting a serious price of carbon will both get us closer to the serious energy reductions we need to make, but also accelerate the domestic development and adoption of these technologies." It's that last part that's good for business. When government holds up its side of the "triangle of technology, policy, and finance" that Reicher says is essential for green development, it spurs the private investment and innovation that keeps businesses strong.

That's where Congress comes in. The most important policy is carbon pricing. That's what will change the economic fundamentals, augmented by other programs -- like energy efficiency standards and government revolving loans to bring new ideas  to the market. The technology and finance sides are ready and able; but we've been waiting for too long for the policy piece that can complete the puzzle.

Google hopes the Senate will act quickly to jumpstart what it thinks will be an economic bright spot in the current downturn.

Again, if you're against the Senate's climate change and clean energy bill, what are you for?  More drilling and continued dependence on oil?  Good luck with that one -- talk to me in 2-3 years when gas is $5-10/gallon, and I drive by you smiling in my plug-in hybrid or electric vehicle, which I've charged via my home solar system.  I see what's coming in our energy future and I'm preparing.  It will, of course, get cheaper and easier to prepare with the right incentives in place, such as the ones that will be in this bill.

The bill's supporters in the Senate are going to have to step up, though, and make a strong case about why passing it is going to make our lives and businesses better, and benefit our environment, economy, health, security and quality of life alike.  Let's hope they've learned how to do it by now...

Read more>>
...

Disease Threatens Douglas Firs of the Pacific Northwest

Scientists have seen this coming for years, and climate change seems to have accelerated the vulnerability of Pacific Northwest forests to disease caused by unwise forest management and tree planting practices.  As the Oregonian reports:

A fungal disease attacking Douglas-fir trees along the Pacific Northwest coast is intensifying and may be linked to a warmer climate and extensive planting of Douglas-fir on logged tracts, new Oregon State University research suggests.

The epidemic of Swiss needle cast stunts growth in both older and younger trees and appears to be unprecedented over at least the past 100 years, OSU researchers Bryan Black, David Shaw, and Jeffrey Stone concluded.

Swiss needle cast, which originated in Europe, has spread sharply since 1996. It affects hundreds of thousands of acres in Oregon and Washington, costing tens of millions a year in lost growth. It rarely kills trees but causes discoloration and loss of needles and stunts growth.

The disease has now been identified at varying levels of severity in western Oregon on more than 300,000 acres in each of the past four years, peaking at 376,000 acres in 2008, the researchers said in a paper published in the journal "Forest Ecology and Management."

Prior to this four-year period, it had affected as much as 300,000 acres only once in the 14-year history of aerial detection surveys, they said.

It could ultimately affect up to two million acres of forests near the Oregon coast, OSU said, and change the face of forestry in a huge region.

The new study concluded that warmer conditions, especially from March through August, are associated with significantly reduced growth in diseased trees, which may reflect earlier fruiting of the fungus. Wet, drizzly conditions in May through July are also important.

The warm, wet conditions within 20 miles or so of the Pacific Ocean make those areas a hotspot of disease in coastal Oregon and Washington.

Another key suspect, scientists say, is the planting for decades of a monoculture of Douglas-fir in replacement of coastal forests, which previously had trees of varying ages and different species.

When Douglas-fir was a small component of these forests, it appears the disease was relatively insignificant. Even-aged stands of Douglas-fir allow the fungus to build up, releasing spores that spread with the wind.

It's text book conservation biology that something like this would happen to the Pacific Northwest's forests -- scientists have been warning of the dangers of poor forest management and planting monocultures of Douglas Fir for years.  Now the timber industry's ignoring of scientific advice has the potential to become very very costly for the region's economy and the local communities that depend on sustainable forest management.  It's really too bad, because the problem could have been avoided.

Read more>>
Read a different article on the subject -- from The Science Blog>>
...

Climate Change and Clean Energy Next? (Or Wait Until It Gets Really Hot?)

Now that a Historic, yet still inadequate Health Insurance Reform bill has passed Congress (incomplete because premium cost controls still need to be strengthened, as Senator Feinstein is trying to do, and as competition from a fairly-priced Public Plan would do), people are starting to talk about passing climate change and clean energy legislation.

David Roberts penned a good one here.

I personally think that the Senate should strategically wait until the weather gets a bit warmer, and the painful Memorial Day weekend gas price spike is felt across America, before taking up the legislation.  It's silly, but it's smart. People are more likely to support the legislation if they're sweating and gas prices are rising, which they will be in June and July.

I also like Joe Romm's new piece a lot, especially the parts about messaging -- on both health care and climate/energy.  Says Romm:

No serious messaging strategy can possibly be built around the phrase “healthcare reform.”  Why?  First, “reform” is a process, not an outcome.  No one serious about moving public opinion talks about process over and over again.  They talk about the benefits that reform brings, outcomes the public cares about.  Second, most of the public likes their healthcare, so the phrase “healthcare reform” is not intrinsically positive and, in fact, is probably negative for much of the public given the more effective conservative messaging.

If you spend half your scarce messaging time talking about “healthcare reform,” while your opponent spends all of their time messaging on negative outcomes that the public worries about, you are fighting with one hand tied behind your back.

Here's a quiz:
1)  What’s worse from a messaging perspective, “the public option” or “cap-and-trade”?  Hint:  Both are process.
2)  Tell me in one sentence what team Obama says is the benefit of passing a health care reform bill.
3)  Tell me in one sentence what team Obama says happens if we fail to pass the climate and clean energy bill.

On health care, no simple, repeated core message exists, so the whole effort is a muddle.

Like the 99% of people who aren’t expert on health care reform, only very recently — 12 months too late — have I begun to develop a clear idea of what this plan is or what it would actually do.  The problem is, many if not most people could probably care less about the uninsured — they just don’t want to join that group — and while people may say they want cost containment, in fact they don’t want their own costs “contained,” they only want their premiums lower.  They do want security about their healthcare.

Again, the single phrase that the Democrats repeat most often is “healthcare reform” whereas the single phrase that Republicans repeat most often is “government takeover.”  Is it any surprise the polling on this bill is so bad?

That's certainly a thought-provoking analysis.  Romm thinks Health Care Security would have been a much better frame for messaging, and I agree.  Here's what he proposes:

A vote for this bill is a vote for healthcare security.  You get to keep your healthcare coverage if you like what you have — and they can’t throw you off of it if you get some expensive disease or get fired.  And you get access to health care coverage if you don’t have it, and they can’t keep it away from you if you have a pre-existing condition.  And this bill keeps whatever healthcare you have or get affordable, so you don’t have to compromise your health to pay for other necessities.

Fortunately, we're doing better on climate change and clean energy, and there's far more bi-partisan support for passage of a strong bill, even if it tends to be for different reasons for Democrats (environmental, health reasons, green jobs) than for Republicans (economic, security reasons).

But we're going to have to leverage the types of lessons Romm emphasizes above to convey to Americans why our lives will be much better once Congress passes this legislation and President Obama signs it.

With Peak Oil also looming bigger and bigger (second link) right around the corner in 2014, you don't even need to think about climate change to realize that if we're to have a robust economic recovery that is also resilient, we've got to get our asses in gear on weaning America off of our dangerous dependence on oil.

It's a wonderful thing when environmental, economic, energy, security and health care solutions of this magnitude are all linked.  Now let's emphasize these linkages and pass bold climate change and clean energy legislation.  It will help unleash the Glacial Lake Missoula-level flood of pubic and private investment needed to transition America to a more secure, robust, and stable clean energy-powered economy.
...

Climate Disruption Concern: Methane from Melting Arctic Ocean Permafrost

Here's a bit of a climate disruption eye-opener for you:

Based on a series of expeditions to the margins of the Arctic Ocean by ship and helicopter, University of Alaska researcher Natalia Shakhova and her colleagues report that methane, a greenhouse gas that is 30 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, is bubbling up from the continental shelf and leaking into the atmosphere. The estimated total: 8 teragrams — that's 8 trillion grams — per year. (See pictures of the effects of global warming.)

Exactly what this means for climate change, however, isn't at all certain. Eight teragrams of anything, let alone a heat-trapping greenhouse gas, sounds dangerous, but as Martin Heimann of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, points out, the newly discovered methane leak represents a small piece of the overall global total of methane emissions — about 500 teragrams annually — from wetlands, termites and agriculture (including belching cows, rotting manure and rice paddies).

The number itself isn't what worries people, though: it's whether this newly identified methane source is part of an ominous trend. Climate scientists have long worried about the enormous amount of methane locked in Arctic permafrost, the thick layer of soil just beneath the surface that remains frozen all year. The methane was originally deposited there through decomposition of organic matter in ancient wetlands, and as long as it stays put, it can't contribute to climate change.

But as the planet warms and the permafrost thaws, methane could begin to escape into the atmosphere, where it would trap more heat and melt more permafrost — one of the many positive feedback mechanisms that could accelerate the climate change that is already under way.

The methane question is something readers of this blog will know that I am keeping a wary eye on.  I'm glad that the amount of methane that these researchers measured doesn't amount to much in relation to the global methane budget.  But reading an article like this worries me in a big big way -- are we just now starting to detect the tip of the iceberg of the methane time bomb starting to go off?  I sure hope not...

Read more>>
...

Amory Lovins: Favoring Bold Emissions Reductions Should Not Depend on Your Views on Climate Change

Amory Lovins has a new outstanding piece out that does a superb job articulating a point that I repeat on this blog time and again: you don't need to accept the science of climate change to be in favor of the solutions to climate change.  Says Lovins:

your opinions about climate science shouldn’t change what you should do about energy. Whether you care most about national security, or jobs and prosperity, or climate and environment, exactly the same energy actions make sense and make money regardless.

Thus, if we focus on outcomes, not motives, we can build a wide and rapid consensus on what to do, even if we differ about why to do it.

Exactly.  And if you're against bold investments in clean energy and efficiency, then what are you FOR?

Do you have an alternative set of energy solutions that will actually work to reduce our dependence on oil and other expensively polluting fossil fuels, which cost the U.S. economy an estimated $160 billion per year in health costs alone?  (Lovins didn't mention "health" benefits in the above quote, so I wanted to be sure to add it, given the presence of health insurance reform on America's agenda this week)

Anybody who opposes bold climate change and clean energy legislation should be asked to propose an alternative that will actually work.

"Drill Baby Drill!", you say?!  Sorry, our own Department of Energy says drilling in Alaska and offshore will reduce gas prices by maybe 2 cents by 2030.  Not even close.

Not to mention that global oil supplies are a sinking ship and staying on board will lead only to more economic, security, health and environmental instability and, likely, disaster.  Clean energy and transport is the rescue ship -- the one to jump on to if you want to join us on our ride to the next great industrial revolution.

Thanks to LauraLu for passing the Lovins piece along...

Read more>>
...

Bill Gates Predicts Zero Emissions

I'm getting caught up on email and news after a couple of days of skiing with family at Alpine Meadows.  Little 5.5 month-old Sonora is really coming to life as a conscious being -- gleefully holding my menu in the restaurant last night as I ordered.  It's truly amazing raising a baby -- they seem to discover and do something new and unexpected almost every day, and each time, it brings no less of a smile to Suzanne and I's faces. 

Having conquered the President's Day traffic on the ride home (which at times left me yearning for the days when I lived in Portland and Boulder), I grew wide-eyed to read about Bill Gates' TED talk, in which he called for Zero Emissions.  As reported from WorldChanging:

On Friday, the world's most successful businessperson and most powerful philanthropist did something outstandingly bold, that went almost unremarked: Bill Gates announced that his top priority is getting the world to zero climate emissions.

Now, I'm not a member of the Cult of Bill myself (I'm typing this on a MacBook), but you don't have to believe that Gates has superhuman powers of prediction to know that his predictions have enormous power. People who will never listen to Al Gore, much to less someone like me, hang on Gates' every utterance.

And Friday, Gates predicted extraordinary climate action: zero. Not small steps, not incremental progress, not doing less bad: zero. In fact, he stood in front of a slide with nothing but the planet Earth and the number zero. That moment was the most important thing that has happened at TED.

What, exactly, did he say, and why is it so important?

Read more>>

Check out Joe Romm's rebuttal -- arguing that it isn't R & D energy technology miracles that we need (as Gates says), but mass deployment of existing technologies.

My take is 'why not both?' -- energy is a very different animal than getting computers, and then better computers, into every office and home.  But there's certainly a model in the proliferation of computers that can be tweeked to apply to the proliferation of clean energy technologies. What do you think?
...

Americans Support Strong Climate Change and Clean Energy Policies

Here's more evidence that even while Americans' concern about climate change may be declining, they remain overwhelmingly in favor of solutions like a transition to a clean energy economy.  The latest from Yale:

Despite a sharp drop in public concern over global warming, Americans—regardless of political affiliation—support the passage of federal climate and energy policies, according to the results of a national survey released today by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities.

The survey found support for:

• Funding more research on renewable energy, such as solar and wind power (85 percent)
• Tax rebates for people buying fuel-efficient vehicles or solar panels (82 percent)
• Establishing programs to teach Americans how to save energy (72 percent)
• Regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant (71 percent)
• School curricula to teach children about the causes, consequences and potential solutions to global warming (70 percent)
• Signing an international treaty that requires the United States to cut emissions of carbon dioxide 90 percent by the year 2050 (61 percent)
• Establishing programs to teach Americans about global warming (60 percent)

Here's a mindblowing part:

Sixty percent of Americans, however, said they have heard “nothing at all” about the cap-and-trade legislation currently being considered by Congress. Only 12 percent had heard “a lot.”

When cap and trade is explained, 58 percent support the policy, but this support drops to approximately 40 percent if household energy costs increase by $15 a month, or 50 cents a day. Sixty-six percent support cap and trade, however, if every household were to receive a yearly bonus of $180 to offset higher energy costs. In addition, 59 percent of Americans said they would likely spend the bonus on home energy efficiency improvements. This increases to 71 percent if the government offered to double the bonus if it was spent on energy efficiency improvements.

What's also interesting is that these results come from the same respondents who said they weren't nearly as concerned about global warming as they were a few years ago.  Says the study's lead author:

It may at first glance seem strange that public support for many of these policies remains high, despite the drops in public belief and concern about global warming we reported last week. These results are from the same survey respondents, however, and it is important to remember that different people support these policies for different reasons. For example, some do so because they want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, others because they want to strengthen national security, or make the US less dependent on foreign sources of energy. 

Exactly.  It's getting the solutions in place that matters -- not how we get them in place.  Whatever it takes to build the broad public support needed to make it happen...

Read more>>
...

Pentagon: Climate Change, Energy Security and Economic Stability Are Inextricably Linked

The military and intelligence communities are getting serious about climate change -- preparing for the problem and advancing the solutions. 

The QDR notes that climate change affects the Department of Defense “in two broad ways:” first, global warming impacts and disasters will “act as an accelerant of instability or conflict,” and second, military installations and forces around the globe will have to adapt to rising seas, increased extreme weather, and other effects of global warming:

Assessments conducted by the intelligence community indicate that climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration. While climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world.

The military is working on not just responding to the impacts of global warming, but also mitigating the threat by reducing global warming emissions. Increased use of renewable energy and energy efficiency not only lessens the military’s enormous carbon footprint, but also delivers immediate security benefits:

Energy efficiency can serve as a force multiplier, because it increases the range and endurance of forces in the field and can reduce the number of combat forces diverted to protect energy supply lines, which are vulnerable to both asymmetric and conventional attacks and disruptions.

It's very very good news to see the military and intelligence communities getting behind efforts to deal with climate change and advance green economy solutions.  There's a ton of power there, and this should really help move things forward.  As well as provide the types of evidence that denialists need to see to realize that we've got a very real problem to solve here...

That said, it also makes the opponents of climate change and clean energy solutions look that much more like Ostriches -- with small brains and their heads in the ground. 

Read more>>
...

What Next After Copenhagen -- Messaging Higher Up on Maslow's Pyramid

 

Here's an outstanding set of comments from a behavior change expert about what comes next following Copenhagen:

What to do after Copenhagen?

Radically reframe, that's what. Change the messaging and focus on the HUMAN condition we are in -- not the condition of the climate.

Why?
Two reasons: Cognitive brain science and the history of social movements.

Cognitive Brain Science (generally speaking) says that the brain needs (first) messaging that is not only human centered, but individual centered, to turn concern about an issue into action on it. We can and are concerned about climate change; but for us to turn that concern into action, we need the issue framed as a HUMAN SITUATION.

The human condition we are in is not 'climate change' or 'global warming' or even '350.' That is the science, but it is not our story.

Further, the brain underestimates tragedy, especially of the distant future kind, and "future tragedy to humanity" simply does not register in the brain. We have a blind spot when it comes to accepting how tragic something will be.

BUT, cognitive brain science tells us that we OVERESTIMATE how wonderful things will be in the future.

Second reason we need radically new frame/messaging:
According to eminent sociologist, Robert Brulle, 40 years of social movement research shows that people act when messages are framed as "nightmare" versus "dream." We - rather, our brains -- need the "nightmare" driven home hard and to be as immediate and personal as we can (to get past the blind spot). But give us a dream of how wonderful the future will be, and our brains will jump on the bandwagon with glee.

As the same Alex Steffen (rightly) says, "Any vision of sustainability that does not include a vision of human happiness is bound to fail." better put, perhaps, a vision of sustainability that does include a dream of human happiness is bound to succeed. The brain can't help it.

So, given our brains and our history, unless and until the "environmental" movement finds the human story in climate change, our brains won't get the tragic human condition we are in.

Here is the messaging that I think will work - especially if it is unified across all the major environmental groups:

HUMAN NIGHTMARE: Climate change is the human condition of mutually assured destruction of people and planet.

HUMAN DREAM: MUTUALLY ASSURED VITALITY of persons and places, humans and habitats, all over a planet cared for by all.

Fold the science, the numbers, the carbon, and all the rest of our environmental condition into these two human nightmare/dream human conditions, and our brains will finally GET IT.

This is a fantastic set of comments, and apparently MimiK (the commenter) is writing a book on the subject.

I disagree on what the dream and nightmare are, mainly in that I think we can make it even more concrete:

HUMAN NIGHTMARE (appealing high up on Maslow -- to our basic food need): Climate change, by destabilizing the conditions required to grow our crops and maintain safe drinking and agricultural water supplies, threatens humanity with the prospect of unprecedented global food, fresh water and starvation crises.

HUMAN DREAM (appealing to health, safety, economic security, biophilia): You don't even need to accept the science of climate change to be in favor of clean energy economy solutions, which are getting cheaper and will power the 21st century economy. These 21st century clean energy sources will reduce pollution and protect public health by cleaning the air that we breath and water that we drink.  They will improve our economic and national security by freeing our economy from its unstable, unpredictable, and increasingly risky reliance on global oil markets.  They will create millions of jobs -- not only to build and deploy the technologies, but to do the sales and administration, marketing, PR, etc.  They will also create jobs indirectly -- more fuel efficient cars and energy efficient homes means we will have lower energy costs.  Thus, we will have more money to spend on electronics, travel, home improvements, and all sorts of other goods and services, which will spur broad economic growth and job creation.

If you are against these solutions, than what are you for -- continued reliance on dirty oil and other fossil fuels? Those are the energy sources of the 20th century -- their prices are rising, supplies are increasingly uncertain, and the pollution they cause is costing our economy over $120 billion per year in health care costs alone, contributing to our skyrocketing health insurance costs and further slowing the economy.

Read more>>


NOTE: I'm thrilled to report that Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) clearly gets it, and nails the PATRIOTIC + economic appeal.  As climate and energy policy expert, Joe Romm reports: 

"Six months ago my biggest worry was that an emissions deal would make American business less competitive compared to China,” said Senator Lindsay Graham, a Republican from South Carolina who has been deeply involved in climate change issues in Congress. “Now my concern is that every day that we delay trying to find a price for carbon is a day that China uses to dominate the green economy.”

If you are against the bold policy solutions needed for our Clean Energy Economy to really take off, you are unpatriotically helping China whoop America in the race for the millions of jobs it will create! 
...

Climate Change, Rising Sea Levels, Threaten Egypt's Food Supply

Stories and pictures of climate change impacting peoples' lives now continue to become more and more numerous every year.

Now comes news that Egypt's fertile Nile River delta -- and its rich agricultural lands -- are having trouble dealing with this century's 8-inch sea level rise, and the 1-foot sea level rise predicted by 2020 is sounding economic and food security alarm bells:

The Nile Delta, Egypt's bread basket since antiquity, is being turned into a salty wasteland by rising seawaters, forcing some farmers off their lands and others to import sand in a desperate bid to turn back the tide.

Experts warn that global warming will have a major impact in the delta on agriculture resources, tourism and human migration besides shaking the region's fragile ecosystems.

Over the last century, the Mediterranean Sea, which fronts the coast of the Nile Delta, has risen by 20 centimetres (six eight inches) and saltwater intrusion has created a major challenge, experts say.

A recent government study on the coast of Alexandria, Egypt's second largest city, expects the sea to continue to rise and flood large swathes of land.

"A 30 centimetre rise in sea level is expected to occur by 2025, flooding approximately 200 square kilometres (77 square miles).

"As a result, over half a million inhabitants may be displaced and approximately 70,000 jobs could be lost," the study said.

The fertile Nile Delta provides around a third of the crops for Egypt's population of 80 million and a large part of these crops are exported providing the country with an important source of revenue.

Once stories and pictures like this start to hit harder in America, public support for bold policy solutions is sure to change.  Only then, it may be too late to prevent climate disruption from having catastrophic impacts on life as we know it.

How does this threaten, off the top of my head, a couple of my favorite things in life?  For one, I hope that New Orleans (I'm a huge fan of the city's Jazz Festival) and my favorite ski areas (I'm an avid skier) are able to survive!

Read more>>
...

Americans Increasingly Misinformed About Climate Change, With Dangerous Policy Implications

 

A new report from the Yale Project on Climate Change indicates that Americans' awareness about climate change is increasingly headed in the direction of fantasy.

Americans who believe that most scientists think global warming is happening decreased 13 points, to 34 percent, while 40 percent of the public now believes there is a lot of disagreement among scientists over whether global warming is happening or not.

Despite growing scientific evidence that global warming will have serious impacts worldwide, public opinion is moving in the opposite direction. Over the past year the United States has experienced rising unemployment, public frustration with Washington and a divisive health care debate, largely pushing climate change out of the news. Meanwhile, a set of emails stolen from climate scientists and used by critics to allege scientific misconduct may have contributed to an erosion of public trust in climate science.

It is also clear that public understanding of climate change fundamentals - that it is happening, is human caused, and will have serious consequences for human societies and natural ecosystems here in the United States and around the world - is heading in the wrong direction. These findings underscore the critical need for more and improved climate change education and communication.

The reality, of course, is that the world's best scientists had this to say in June 2009, in a joint statement of the National Academies of Sciences of the G8+5 Countries (literally the top scientists in each country -- the National Academies are like a scientific All-Star Team):

In a joint statement, the science academies of the G8 countries, plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa, called on their leaders to "seize all opportunities" to address global climate change that "is happening even faster than previously estimated." The signers, which include U.S. National Academy of Sciences President Ralph J. Cicerone, urged nations at the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks to adopt goals aimed at reducing global emissions by 50 percent by 2050. The academies also urged the G8+5 governments, meeting in Italy next month, to "lead the transition to an energy efficient and low carbon economy, and foster innovation and research and development for both mitigation and adaptation technologies."

Clearly, we've got some serious work to do to make sure voters in America are qualified to influence their politicians' decisions about climate change solutions.

Read the full report >>

...

Climate Change Legislation Supporters Focus on Job Creation

Proponents of climate change and clean energy legislation are turning away from environmental appeals, and focusing on the legislation's job-creating benefits, reports Reuters:

Supporters of a global warming bill have failed to captivate the country with warnings of drought, disappearing polar ice caps, refugees fleeing floods and worsening disease. So, they are ramping up a more positive-sounding argument.

Forget environmental benefits and saving the planet. Clean energy, they say, could create millions of new jobs, a potentially powerful argument amid a 10 percent U.S. unemployment rate, the worst in more than a quarter-century.

There are also indirect job-creating benefits of a clean energy economy:

The University of California study, for example, noted that efficiencies encouraged by climate legislation would reduce energy and transportation costs, saving families and businesses money "they can spend on domestic goods and services, which will create jobs for Americans."

As I always say, to build public support for this legislation, it's crucial to use appeals that are immediately relevant to improving peoples' everyday lives.

Read more>>
...

Climate Change, Water and Security

Grist has an outstanding interview with Stephen Solomon, author of Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power and Civilization.

Here's one example of the impacts of climate change on water supplies and national security that really paints a concrete (and scary) picture of the costs of not taking bold action now:

One thing that (the problem of water scarcity) leads to is (problems with) national security and failed state issues. I’ll give you one example: Pakistan, where the U.S. has invested enormous resources, is a nuclear-armed state with a rift with the Taliban, and it’s already a bit of a failing state. Soon it’s going to have one third of its water from in the Indus River—its main water lifeline—dry up from the lost (Himalayan) glacier melt. At the same time, its population is increasing by 30 percent. So in the next 15 years, we can imagine a country that’s already on the brink, dealing with a loss of 30 percent of its water while the population increases by 30 percent.

Wow...

We see this coming, we know of the potential dangers that lurk around the corner, and that climate disruption is sure to bring unpleasant surprises.  Yet America, the supposed leader of the free world, is also the world's greatest barrier to action on an issue that threatens to destabilize life as we know it?!

How much better would we feel about America -- and ourselves -- if we were leading on these issues via an Apollo Project-like energy and land use effort?  Such an effort would galvanize the hopes of billions around the world, would revitalize our economy, would revolutionize our security, and perhaps most importantly, would rejuvenate our currently-downtrodden national psyche with a positive, hope-inspiring "we can do this!" mission.

Read more>>
...

What Would Failure to Combat Climate Change Quickly Mean?

Failure to get our acts together on climate change and clean energy will make solutions more exorbitantly expensive the longer we wait.  In addition, there are thresholds beyond which currently viable solutions will no longer be effective for stabilizing the climate.

Such is the message of this article in Scientific American, which reports on a new study published by scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, and the Energy Research Center in the Netherlands:

Failure to set and meet strict targets for greenhouse gas emissions cuts over the next 40 years could put long-term goals – such as limiting planetary warming to 2ºC by 2100 – permanently out of reach.

That's the conclusion of one of the first analyses to explore the relationships among energy use, mid-century targets and long-term policy options, published Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"These guys have said if you wait too long, or if you don't do 'x,' the cost of even trying to achieve 'y' is just going to go through the roof," added (Gary Yohe, an economist at Wesleyan University).

For all the talk of how expensive it will be to enact climate change and clean energy solutions now, these costs are nothing compared to what they will be if we don't take action.

It's kind of like comparing the costs of treating cancer if you catch it relatively early versus the costs of treating it if you wait until it gets really bad (and painfully unpleasant)...

Read more>>
...

Yet Another Report Links Vehicle Exhaust to Health Problems

A new report provides yet another set of links between vehicle exhaust and health problems (and thus health care and health insurance costs).  The NY Times reports:

Exhaust from cars and trucks exacerbates asthma in children and may cause new cases as well as other respiratory illnesses and heart problems resulting in deaths, an independent institute that focuses on vehicle-related air pollution has concluded.

A relationship was found between pollution from vehicles and impaired lung function and accelerated hardening of the arteries.

The report, to be issued on Wednesday by the nonprofit Health Effects Institute, analyzed 700 peer-reviewed studies conducted around the world on varying aspects of motor vehicle emissions and health. It found “evidence of a causal relationship,” but not proof of one, between pollution from vehicles and impaired lung function and accelerated hardening of the arteries.

It said there was “strong evidence” that exposure to traffic helped cause variations in heart rate and other heart ailments that result in deaths. But among the many studies that evaluated death from heart problems, some did not separate stress and noise from air pollution as a cause, it said.

The institute, based in Boston, is jointly financed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the auto industry to help assure its independence. Its reports are peer-reviewed but are not published in a scientific journal.

From a scientific standpoint, the next step would be to conduct well-designed follow-up studies that use multivariate approaches to test and isolate causal relationships between vehicle pollution and human illness.

From a common sense standpoint, we are once again reminded that climate change and clean energy solutions that slash vehicle emissions are also likely to help slash our health care and (thus) health insurance costs.

Read more>>
...