David Sassoon's Climate Chronicles

There is a category of psychological illusion called "projection" which serves the purpose of reducing personal anxiety. It's a defense mechanism in which one attributes one’s own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts and emotions to others.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal provided a textbook case of the phenomenon in an editorial called Global Warming as Mass Neurosis. It is yet another installment of exemplary denialist rhetoric in need of some Freudian analysis.

The author, Bret Stephens, accuses those concerned about global warming of practicing a sick-souled theology. He doesn't realize he's blaming others for his own illness: his dogmatic embrace and belief in the perfect functioning of free markets.

The energy discussion took a great leap forward today with the release of a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Senator McCain and President Bush have recently called for oil drilling in offshore US waters as a solution to high gas prices. So the report examines whether drilling would make a difference at the pump and compares it to the impact of increasing the fuel economy of automobiles.

No surprise -- drilling for oil would have no effect on gas prices. That's according to the Energy Information Administration:

The Energy Information Agency (EIA) projects that Senator McCain's proposal would have no impact in the near-term since it will be close to a decade before the first oil can be extracted from the currently protected offshore areas.

The EIA projects that production will reach 200,000 barrels a day (0.2 percent of projected world production) at peak production in close to twenty years. It describes this amount as too small to have any significant effect on oil prices.

But what if US autos had become more fuel efficient over the last 20 years, slowly but steadily? A lot of savings at the pump and a whole lot of oil no longer needed -- about 3 million barrels a day less. The lost opportunity is astounding in magnitude, and points to a better way toward energy security.

The NY TImes story on this latest absurdity from the Department of Interior plays the headline pretty straight: Citing Need for Assessments, US Freezes Solar Energy Projects. And here are the lead paragraphs:

Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.

The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

A bit of editing at the copy desk might have yielded a more telling lede:

The federal government has placed a moratorium on solar energy projects on public land in order to study the environmental impact of collecting sunshine in the desert.

It's another spiteful move by the administration designed to slow down the development of alternative energy projects. Some of the best solar resources in the country fall on public land, and fledgling solar companies were left frustrated and angry.

Yet just last week, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne saw fit to stand next to President Bush in the Rose Garden when he called on Congress to allow development of oil shale on public lands in the Green River Basin which straddles Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The moment is commemorated on the Department of Interior web site in both a photo and a video.

Architecture 2030 has a knack for cutting through complexity and clarifying what needs to be done to dramatically reduce emissions from the building sector.

Take the organization's 2030 Challenge. It provides a pathway for the building sector to reach carbon neutrality by 2030. That's no small target: the sector is responsible for close to half of the USA's greenhouse gas footprint. But reform the way buildings consume energy and you open a highway to solving climate. Step one along the 2030 road? A 50% reduction in energy consumption in all new and renovated buildings by the end of 2010. That's a little more than 2 years from now.

Success depends on stronger buildings codes to catch everyone at the point where construction permits are issued. But if you think about all the building codes in every city, county and state that need to be changed, it's a Herculean task. Good luck.

But for Ed Mazria, 2030's founder and director, it's not a matter of luck but precise distillation. All he needed was a three column table with 14 rows to show any building department anywhere how to strengthen its code to hit the target.

Take a look at offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and you'll see a curious sight: wind turbines on the platforms, hundreds of them. The one in the picture is on a Chevron rig.

Chevron and other oil companies are using the power from the micro-generating turbines to run the nerve center of oil rig operations - called SCADA in industry jargon. Oil rig SCADA systems used to run off of inefficient thermal electric generators, which burned oil and then converted the heat to electricity. No more.

The EPA Journal published a long neglected and important article way back in 1985, of accidental but great relevance to climate change. It ought to be required reading, even though the article makes not a single mention of either climate change or global warming.

It does, however, have a most relevant section of seven short paragraphs about the Roman Empire called "Addicted to Lead." Remember, this was published in 1985, so as you read the section excerpted below, when you see the word "lead", think "carbon" instead.

He's way too unpopular to consider for the second slot on the McCain ticket, but is a cabinet post for Dick Cheney as energy czar out of the question if the Republicans prevail in November?

After the roll out last week of McCain's drill-drill-drill energy policy, it's pretty likely. Backed by the full might of the Republican message machine, McCain's energy proposals were lifted wholesale out of the Dick Cheney energy strategy that has guided US policy since 2001.

It's the policy that was developed by National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), a group created by President Bush two weeks after he first took office and placed under Cheney's direction, whose secret deliberations have been a source of controversy ever since.

It's the policy that found expression in the Energy Act of 2005, passed by Congress. And it's the policy described concisely on the web site of the Strategic Unconventional Fuels Task Force, a group within the Department of Energy, created by the Energy Act of 2005.

In its official documents, The Task Force spells out what the fossil future is supposed to look like according to the energy security gospel of Dick Cheney. At the top of the list of things needed to develop energy sources for the future? Development of the oil shale deposits in the American West.

That's exactly what McCain proposed last week.

So if elected, why wouldn't he provide a cabinet appointment to the dark visionary and architect of America's endless fossil future?

Cheney ain't the decider, but he's certainly the go-to guy.

The Future of Energy: It's Closer than You Think.

That's this week's Economist cover story. And here's the final few sentences (page 17.)

The best thing that rich-world governments can do is to encourage the alternatives by taxing carbon (even knowing that places like China and India will not) and removing subsidies that favour fossil fuels.

Competition should do the rest—for the fledgling firms of the alternative-energy industry are in competition with each other as much as they are with the incumbent fossil-fuel companies. Let a hundred flowers bloom. When they have, China, too, may find some it likes the look of.

Therein lies the best hope for the energy business, and the planet.

The Economist, that bastion of free-market wisdom, has gone green. Eureka! Will the Wall Street Journal be next?

Don't hold your breath, even though the reason behind the Economist's support for a clean energy revolution is purely monetary.

Twenty years ago today, Dr. James Hansen warned Congress about global warming. To mark the occasion, he was before Congress again today, and at the National Press Club. He has posted the text of his presentation here, and accompanying powerpoint slides here.

Here are some excerpts from "Global Warming Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near."

My presentation today is exactly 20 years after my 23 June 1988 testimony to Congress, which alerted the public that global warming was underway. There are striking similarities between then and now, but one big difference.

Again a wide gap has developed between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific community and what is known by policymakers and the public. Now, as then, frank assessment of scientific data yields conclusions that are shocking to the body politic. Now, as then, I can assert that these conclusions have a certainty exceeding 99 percent.

The difference is that now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb. The next President and Congress must define a course next year in which the United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility for the present dangerous situation.

Otherwise it will become impractical to constrain atmospheric carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas produced in burning fossil fuels, to a level that prevents the climate system from passing tipping points that lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity’s control.

Changes needed to preserve creation, the planet on which civilization developed, are clear. But the changes have been blocked by special interests, focused on short-term profits, who hold sway in Washington and other capitals. I argue that a path yielding energy independence and a healthier environment is, barely, till possible. It requires a transformative change of direction in Washington in the next year......

Read More

Bookmark/Search this post with:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• 1 comment
• send to friend

On June 23, 1988, Dr. James Hansen provided testimony before Congress, stating unequivocally for the first time that global temperatures had risen beyond the range of natural variability.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the testimony, he's been invited back to the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming to give a briefing on his vision for confronting the climate challenge, and he's also been invited to a special luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington, where he will also speak.

It will be a day to recognize Dr. Hansen, the science he practices, the courage he exhibits; but it will also be a day for Congress and the nation to realize that in order to depart from business-as-usual and reduce carbon emissions, we must abandon politics-as-usual. We've seen what 20 years of it can do.

Nothing.

And with the last seven and a half years particularly egregious and awash in oil and blood, maybe this time, Congress and the nation will listen to what Dr. Hansen has to say.

Happy anniversary.