CF / Sea Level Rise and Adaptation
Climate change is not debatable, it is an issue of science, facts and physics. It is happening, and debates will not change that. The physics of global warming progresses despite our opinion about it. That’s the message from professor Jim White, a geological and environmental scientist and director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research in Boulder, Colorado.
Climate change is progressing and easily observable in nature right now. Greenland’s ice sheets are melting. We may need to live with it, so we have to be more responsible with our money, and stop spending it on wars, and start planning for how we are going to adapt to climate change and sea level rise, if we can adapt at all. Our resources are finite, including finances to adapt to climate change. Sea Level rise is going to increase, and cities like Miami will be under water in 100 years or so.
This Climate File* is an interview with Professor Jim White, broadcast on KGNU radio’s show How on Earth, from August 3rd, 2010.
Professor Jim White directs the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, and he’s a professor of geological sciences and environmental studies at the University of Colorado.
Professor White is also a paleoclimatologist — in other words, he studies ancient climates in attempt to understand better how Earth’s climate system works. He has just journeyed back to Boulder from the Greenland ice sheet, where he has been part of an international science team working on the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling project, or NEEM.
After two summers of work, the NEEM team has drilled down more than 1.5 miles through the Greenland ice sheet, reaching bedrock just last week. And the ice core Jim White and his colleagues have recovered is from what’s known as the Eemian interglacial period, from 115,000 to 130,000 years ago.
Original show broadcast site.
It’s very interesting to me that this professor of environmental studies claims he is not pessimistic about the future. How is that possible? He is a teacher, so he is optimistic about the next generation of young people that he works with every day. That’s good to know. See more about this interview here, at CEJournal.
“White is a paleoclimatologist — he studies ancient climates to understand better how Earth’s climate system works. He has just journeyed back from the Greenland ice sheet, where he has been part of an international science team working on the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling project, or NEEM.”
*Climate Files, from now on, will consist of archived audio and video files on climate and the environment, from various sources. The purpose is for information and educational reasons and to get these lesser known files out to the public as examples of some of the best climate change and environmental information and science. We believe the public has a right to know as much as possible on this topic and that this information should be shared as widely as possible.
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CF / Deadly Pursuit of Extreme Oil
Raping the Planet: Strip mining at Fort McMurray. Greenpeace / Colin O'Connor
The end of easy oil is over. From now on, all the oil we use will be difficult to obtain. So, since renewable fuels are available to us, it follows that we should be working hard to get off fossil fuels. Instead we are cleaning up the mess that more oil has created and planning to get even more difficult-to-obtain oil. This is not just unnecessary — it’s dangerous and stupid.
This is a recording of a very interesting and timely presentation that puts our use of oil in perspective, by expert, author and Hampshire College professor Michael Klare. He talks about the follies and dangers of our unwavering pursuit of extreme energy and describes the geopolitics of the energy crisis.
Oil is now actually “extreme energy” and unconventional rather than normal, because we are now getting it out of shale, from under miles of ocean water, and from tar sands in Canada, for example. It’s become “extreme oil”. We have passed peak oil, so oil is no longer readily available except by these extreme measures of extraction that push the very edges of what is possible. And while they are pushing those edges, some of the very nastiest environmental degradation and pollution is taking place. As a result, the Gulf of Mexico may have a permanent “dead zone” far bigger than anything imagined in the past, and it may not be cleaned up for a century. Is this really what we want to do to our planet for a little bit of energy that we will burn tomorrow and then it’s gone forever? It’s time to say No to fossil fuels and move on to something that makes more sense. Pursuit of extreme oil is a terrible government strategy.
Michael Klare’s entire talk can be downloaded here. Watch, if you want to see the slides, from here.
Klare’s latest book is Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet.
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Climate Files 68 / Climate Scientists Conquer a Lord
Diagram from the testimony of Dr. James Hurrell (click to enlarge)
Real climate scientists smack down a gecko-like climate denier operative named Lord Christopher Monckton. Or to put it nicely, for purposes of educating the public about climate change, real climate scientists update us on climate science and correct climate denier operative named Lord Christopher Monckton at a May 6th global warming hearing. Monckton is a poser and a favorite of the right-wingers in the climate denial movement. After you get past the frustration of being fed lies by Mr. Monckton about climate change, it’s highly entertaining — especially when a congressman decides he’s had it with the bull. This all took place on May 6th in a congressional hearing, but this so-called debate was just made for TV! But here you have it in podcast form, in nearly its entirety — and all of Mr. Monckton in his ridiculous glory. If you want to watch this presentation you can view the video by downloading it at this link. This Climate Files podcast contains only the audio.
The hearing was sponsored by Rep. Edward J. Markey and held by his Select Committee on Global Warming, a hearing he called “The Foundation of Climate Science”.
Climate Scientists who testified last week:
- Dr. Lisa Graumlich, Director at School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona
- Dr. Chris Field, Director, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, and co-chair of “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” portion of new IPCC report due in 2014
- Dr. James McCarthy, Professor of Biological Oceanography, Harvard University, past President and Chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, co-chair of “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” portion of IPCC report published in 2001
- Dr. James Hurrell, Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research, contributor to IPCC reports
And for some reason the guest (their “expert) of the GOP minority: Lord Christopher Monckton, a British consultant, writer and journalist — not a scientist. He argued with the real scientists that were present, and basically made a fool of himself. If you click on the names of the scientists at the hearing listed above, you can download their statements that contain loads of climate science facts and figures. See more at the website for the hearing. Lord Monckton and his charts have been thoroughly debunked by scientists, and one place with a good debunking is here on RealClimate.org.
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Climate Files 67/ Corporate Oil Terrorism
Gulf Stream Currents -- from NOAA
The Gulf Oil spill is nothing short of catastrophic. It will take months to clean up the oil and that’s only possible if the oil stops gushing from the 3 mile-deep oil well leaks! There is a lot of blame to go around — first of all BP and the operators of the oil rig who tried to save money and not install adequate safety equipment. Also blame the Bush administration and Dick Cheney and their anti-environmental energy policy. Finally, blame Halliburton because they did not install the safety checks that could have possibly prevented this horrendous leak. This is corporatist greed, forming our energy policy, taking what they want of our natural resources and leaving the environment decimated. It’s a form of terrorism. But even these entities are not the real culprit. The final blame should lie on the American people and our insatiable, endless taste for oil.
This episode of Climate Files contains some news on the spill, some background on past BP spills, an interview with one of the survivors of the oil rig explosion last month, and a clip of Mike Papantonio from the Mike Malloy radio show.
Skytruth is an activist blog that lobbies against offshore drilling. Their website is blog.skytruth.org
Just five months ago, SkyTruth’s President testified to Congress about the risks posed by offshore drilling. SkyTruth testified at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on November 19. You can read the entire testimony by John Amos here (pdf download). The general subject of the hearing was Federal stewardship of offshore oil and gas drilling in U.S. waters.
If anyone has any doubt who is determining our energy policy, watch this video from the Energy and Natural Resources hearing last November 2009. It’s clear that the American people are not the people Congress is representing on energy policy. There was a similar blowout in Australia that was a bit smaller and still took 10 weeks to control.
Ring of Fire’s website is here.
Two additional ProPublica.com stories about further leaks and more chemical spills is here.
BP Ready to Pay “Legitimate” Oil Spill Claims, says their ‘generous’ CEO. “BP is ready to pay all legitimate claims tied to the oil spill caused by the accident at its Gulf of Mexico undersea well, Chief Executive Tony Hayward told National Public Radio on Monday.” This is after they tried to get away with limiting all claims to $5,000!
The interview with the oil rig worker is from Drillingahead.com, a site that is not environmentally aware or sympathetic.
Download this episode here or subscribe on the right.
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Climate Files / Hansen Talks Climate in Sydney
Hansen speaking in Adelaide, March 2010
He speaks about energy policy too, and clearly feels frustrated with the bias against nuclear power. It’s not that he’s a big advocate of nuclear power, but Hansen realizes that we need carbon-free power and that it cannot all come from what he calls “soft renewables”. Here are a few other points he makes that are not widely known:
- The whole problem with our energy is that fossil fuels are cheap. So to get people to change their behavior, we need a gradually rising price on carbon. To get the public to accept the additional cost, we need to return this money to the public.
- The climate system is incredibly sensitive. We know from paleoclimate history that the climate has changed a lot in the past. To make predictions of coming climate, climate scientists are not depending on “climate modeling” so much as real data they are getting from the past and the present.
- Six other countries are developing 4th Generation nuclear plants, and China is building at least 24 new nuclear plants.
- We will not get rid of nuclear plants, so we should be making them safer.
- Renewable energy is what everyone wants to hear, but the fact is, they are still invisible on the graph. There is a renewable portion on the graph, but that is burning of biomass. The dream that soft renewable technologies will be enough is not supported by empirical evidence. India and china are planning on going with mainly nuclear for their future power.
- Hansen also expresses his disappointment and frustration with the Obama administration and politicians like Senator John Kerry, who want him to support the Obama administration’s plans for coal and CCS and oil drilling. Hansen won’t, for obvious reasons.
Hansen also wrote an article while he was in Australia in March. — “Only a carbon tax and nuclear power can save us”, claims The Australian. in its title of his article. He didn’t really say that, but that could be inferred from what he did say.
The video version of this podcast is in three parts from Blip TV here. This podcast contains all three parts in one episode.
Sorry there was a problem with downloading the file. … Click here to download it.
Climate Scientist James Hansen is known as the ‘grandfather of climate change’ and is perhaps the world’s leading authority on the science of climate change. He is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and has for the last 30 years focused on climate research, publishing more than 100 scholarly articles on the topic. This talk was presented by Sydney Ideas and the United States Studies Centre, March 11, 2010.
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The Front Lines of Climate Change
This is a tragic video from Bangladesh, from Yale e360. Climate change is causing water to rise and people aren’t just losing their ability to support themselves; they are losing their very homes. Yet they are too poor to move, so what can be done? Governments will have to pay to relocate people in the near future, and in fact should be doing this now. I don’t know why these people have been abandoned by their government, but this is now their life. More about this video is below.
“Danish photographer and filmmaker Jonathan Bjerg Møller recently spent nine months in Bangladesh, chronicling the lives of people struggling to survive just a few feet above sea level. He traveled to the South Asian nation after hearing projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about the millions of climate refugees that would be created this century by rising seas and more powerful storms. Møller wanted to put a human face on this issue, and decided there was no better place than Bangladesh, where 15 million of its 160 million people live less than three feet above sea level.
While he was in Bangladesh, Cyclone Aila struck, killing roughly 200 people and leaving thousands homeless. Møller proceeded to document the devastation from that 2009 storm, as well the impact of subsiding land and rising seas on other Bangladeshis, many of whom earn less than $1 a day. In this Yale Environment 360 report, we present two videos by Møller – “Aila’s Victims” and “Wahidul’s Story.”
A Bangladeshi man who is the subject of one of his videos, Wahidul, lives in the town of Kuziartek, which was once home to 40,000 people. Now, the island on which Kuziartek was located is underwater.”
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(If you can’t see the video, try subscribing or downloading it. It plays for me in iTunes.)
Climate Files 64 / Al Gore’s Call to Action
Al Gore fills us in on facts and strategy to help our lawmakers to accomplish something useful on climate change, for a change. We need to either change our legislators minds on global warming, or plan for the worst now. Unfortunately, we probably can’t adapt to the 4 or more degree temperature rise in global average temperature that seems inevitable. What is the U.S. doing about it? What they are doing is being done in secret to avoid advertising problems (This is how it is being described). Senator John Kerry and two other senators have shown industry leaders their 8-page draft bill on climate and energy. We don’t get to see it, but it has been discussed and this episode lets you in on what is known about it so far. Reportedly, it contains targets that are a bit lowered than the bill that passed in Congress, and more allowances for industry, energy, coal, natural gas and oil. From what I have read about it, it emphasizes jobs, but sounds like a planetary train-wreck on climate change.
The U.S. government is planning for adaptation and ‘resilience’ for the government — not necessarily for us. Yet they won’t act decisively to stop carbon emissions.
On March 16, 2010, the Task Force released an Interim Progress Report which outlines the Task Force’s progress to date and recommends key components to include in a national strategy on climate change adaptation.
The Interim Progress Report is available for 60 days of public comment. Submit comments here.
Al Gore spoke to supporters and the public in an open conference call on Monday, March 15th, in conjunction with Repower America. Senator Sherrod Brown also spoke. Hear Al Gore’s call to activist action in this episode, and find out what you can do to help push climate legislation in the U.S. along. One suggestion he had is to write letters to Senators. See more at Repower America. Write letters to your congressmen!
Finally, the last talk in this episode is an interview with Lester Brown, author of his newly revised book, Plan B 4.0. This is the premier Post Carbon Exchange interview, and they plan a series of these in the future. You can check out his book and read more at the Post Carbon Institute.
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Climate Files 63 / Steven Chu at Stanford
US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu spoke at Stanford University the 2nd week of March about clean energy , climate change science, innovation and education. It’s a science and solutions oriented talk so it’s valuable for everyone.
Secretary Chu met with students before the talk for a student round table discussion on energy. The event was followed in the evening by a panel called “Educating the Energy Generation,” focused on how the U.S. can build a competitive clean energy workforce as quickly as possible. See here for an article about Secretary Chu’s visit to Stanford, “The Biggest Speaker of the Year,” and why his perspective is important. On the DoE website, Chu asks,
What are the steps we must take as a nation to create new, clean energy jobs and ensure America’s long-term competitiveness? What are the consequences for our climate of inaction? How can science and technology offer us new and better choices - and how can America’s young people make a difference?
I recently returned to Stanford University, where I spent many years as a professor, to discuss these and many other issues with a great group of students. I’d like to invite you to watch a replay of my speech here, and then share your thoughts afterward on my personal Facebook page (www.facebook.com/stevenchu) to continue the conversation.
During the speech he said something to take notice of: “Humans are altering the destiny of the planet. . . . [but] it’s not too late.”
To watch a video of this event, see the Department of Energy homepage
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Music in the podcast:
1) Step it Up — The Gallerists
2) Lost in Detroit – Rolfe Kent
(more…)
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Climate Files 62 / EPA Priorities
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Discusses 2010 EPA Priorities
On March 8, 2010, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson spoke to the National Press Club on progress made by the agency in 2009 and priorities for 2010. She discussed actions on climate change, America’s waters and EPA’s efforts to expand the conversation on environmentalism.
She was asked why the EPA doesn’t stop surface mining (mountaintop removal) and she basically said because the EPA regulates pollution and water quality; the EPA does not and cannot regulate mining. That is a political excuse. They are the Environmental Protection Agency — it’s their job to protect the environment. Mountaintop removal is one of the most environmentally destructive practices in the U.S. and they must have the authority to stop it. Apparently, this is the EPA’s way of stalling a decision on mountaintop removal. Surface coal mining is especially destructive, not just to our water but to the trees, the ecology of the area, and to the land itself. There is no way to put the top back on a hill or mountain once it has been removed, and no way to completely reinstate the wildlife and balance of the ecology of the area once it has been ruined.
Unfortunately today, in conjunction with this talk, the EPA approved a surface mining operation in Ohio. They imposed supposed stringent rules on the mining operation so that it doesn’t pollute the water, but nowhere are there requirements of a carbon fee or any way for this mining to take responsibility for how it adds to global warming. This is where the EPA has to change. The EPA’s responsibilities should include protecting the human race’s ability to live in its environment–which would necessarily render coal mining obsolete. Read about the EPA’s new permit below. To see the video of this talk, visit CSPAN.org.
Below is the press release released by the EPA today in its approval of the Ohio surface mining permit. This is a blow to the environment, and it’s hard to see how this is the EPA “protecting” the country’s land and water.
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Climate Files 61 / Question the EPA
I attended the EPA Townhall Meeting and asked a good question. Everyone should question the EPA. Mine was about that nasty Canadian tar sands oil and the pipeline that is spilling oil into the beautiful northern part of one of the Great Lakes states. The EPA must not care very much about that, because they wouldn’t answer a simple question: how does a dirty oil pipeline fit in with the new green economy being promoted in the Great Lakes states? I like this EPA so much better than the last one, but it’s hard to believe it’s so easy to stump the EPA.
Also in this episode, what U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said about climate change deniers, and what President Obama said about energy and climate in his speech to the business roundtable in Washington DC. Some headlines were covered too, including the exciting news about Bloom Energy, a new company making a revolutionary new type of stand-alone power station. It sounds almost too good to be true — fuel cells that run on oxygen and biomass? Yes, and it’s already being used by companies in Silicon Valley. Here is what I wrote about it on Futurism Now.
The Delta Institute website is here.
The EPA video page where you can watch the entire Townhall meeting from February 23rd is here.
News covered:
- Poor Nations Could Be Paid to Preserve Marine CO2: UN (Reuters)
- Curbing Smokestack Emissions Tops EPA’s 2011-2013 Enforcement Goals (Greenwire)
- Groups ID Toxic Coal Ash Sites in 14 States, Demand Regulations (ENN)
- Tackling Climate Change ‘Urgent,’ President Hu Jintao Says (China Daily)
- Italy Delays New Solar Plan Again, Industry Worried
- World’s Temperature Record To Be Re-analyzed (The Independent)
- Check out the Enbridge Pipeline in my Backyard blog.
- Waste could fuel part of Spain – read here.
- Did you hear about the 126,000 gallon oil spill in northern MN, the 2nd in months?
You can download this episode here, or subscribe on Climate Files Radio.
Final song is by Galactic, “Heart of Steel feat. Irma Thomas” from the MPR song of the day podcast.
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Climate Files 59 / Wild Weather Wild Climate
The weather seems crazy everywhere, but what does that mean? 49 states in the U.S. got snow in the last week! It means climate change is happening right now and things are going to get much wilder. Find out how we know this and hear Todd Stern, U.S. climate envoy, talk about where the U.S. is going in dealing with climate change.
The Guardian on world-wide wild weather, article here.
Remember this? From NOAA at the end of January: December Global Ocean Temperature Second Warmest on Record. Scientists reported the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the eighth warmest on record for December.
In this episode you can hear excerpts from the Daily Show, the Rachel Maddow show, and the Thom Hartmann show. The bottom line on our wild weather is that it is to be expected, due to a warmer ocean, and moisture and energy in the atmosphere.
But as a result of recent storms, the Utah legislature passed a resolution (HRJ012) which basically states the climate change in a conspiracy and efforts to stop it will bankrupt the nation! Obviously this is not true, but science seems to be having a strange effect on some U.S. lawmakers.
As Scientific American says, “No single weather event proves or disproves the fundamental science of climate change, but extreme weather is what scientists expect from global warming.”
American Progress link to the whole Todd Stern presentation here. He talks about U.S. climate policy and what happened at Copenhagen. The new government climate change website is at Climate.gov and the EPA website where you can weigh in with the new Open Government Directive.
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Climate Files 58 / Climate Change Science
This episode is a presentation of climate science and how we know global warming is happening. The 3 speakers are all scientists and climate experts. This was titled the Science of Climate change, and was presented last week by the Center for American Progress. You can see the entire video at the CFAP website here. You can download their slides there also. (Michael MacCracken’s slides were especially good.)
Basically, they discuss climate change science and risk management, as well as some of the finer points on how the IPCC publishes its data. There is a question and answer session at the end. They write on the CFAP site:
An overwhelming quantity of direct observations and analyses published by scientists in various disciplines around the world demonstrates that human activity has warmed the planet and altered the climate. The severity of the projected impacts of continuing on our current greenhouse gas emissions path has only increased in recent years.
The speakers are Christopher Field, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and Professor of Biology and Environmental Earth System Science at Stanford University, and a coordinating lead author for the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment. The second is Michael MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs, Climate Institute, and co-author/contributing author for various chapters in the IPCC assessment reports. The event was moderated by Joe Romm, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress and prolific blogger at ClimateProgress.org.
Some of their initial points about how we know climate change is happening:
- Average ground temperatures are going up
- Ocean temperatures are going up
- Sea ice cover is decreasing
- Mountain glaciers and permafrost are melting
- Sea level is rising
- A lot of plant and animal species are moving
- Arctic sea ice is retreating
You can download this episode here, or listen below or subscribe on the right.
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