In their report, researchers at Headwaters Economics, an independent nonprofit research group in Bozeman, MT, predict that climate change and the accelerating movement of western residents to areas near or in undeveloped forests will likely prove to be a devastating combination. That 1-degree increase in spring and summer temperatures, they conclude, will increase the area burned by seasonal fires in Montana by more than 300 percent and more than double the cost of protecting homes threatened by fire.
Also mentioned in the article is the outbreak of mountain pine beetles, which is also the result of increasing temperatures.
Check out the Headwaters Economics' report (pdf). Here are the main conclusions:
-- Firefighting costs are highly correlated with the number of homes threatened by a fire.
- The pattern of development (dense vs. spread out) is an important contributing factor.
- When large forest fires burn near homes, costs related to housing usually exceed $1 million per fire.
- As few as 150 additional homes threatened by fire can result in a $13 million increase in suppression
costs in a single year.
- For all agencies involved in fire suppression in Montana, the estimated annual costs related to home
protection for 2006 and 2007 were approximately $55 million and $36 million, respectively.
- If current development trends continue, fires seasons similar to 2006 and 2007 could cost $15 to $23
million more by 2025, bringing total fire suppression costs associated with homes to between $51 and
$79 million dollars. Adjusted for inflation, future costs could be as high as $124 million in 2025.
- A conservative estimate is that 25% of all costs of protecting homes from wildfires within Montana
are paid for by the state. Therefore, Montana's costs for home protection in 2006 and 2007 are
estimated to have been $13.9 million and $9.2 million, respectively. By 2025, Montana's future
costs, adjusted for inflation, could be as high as $31 million.
If we're seriously worried about increasingly large wildfires, the escalating costs of fire suppression, the rapid spread of the mountain pine beetle infestation, and the necessary associated burden on the state and federal taxpayer, there are solutions.
For one, we should support and pass climate change legislation.
For another, Montana's state and local officials and lawmakers should consider and pass legislation that curbs, if not halts, rural development. Maybe we should consider creating "fire suppression zones," or the like, in private property will not be protected by fire suppression efforts, or protected at the landowner's expense.
Likewise, salvage logging should be encouraged, or even contracted, in and around communities and properties within protected zones, and in areas of massive beetle infestation to clear away dead timber. Of course, as Plum Creek's style of salvage logging around Seeley Lake has shown, there will need to be some regulatory oversight of the timber companies - bad salvage logging is worse for fires than congested forest tangled with dead timber.
CAP, again, on the consequences if we don't do anything:
Destruction of trees by the mountain pine beetle, combined with climate change and fire, makes for a dangerous feedback loop. Dead forests sequester less carbon dioxide. Burning forests release lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. More carbon dioxide adds to climate change, which raises temperatures, stresses forests, and makes more and bigger fires more likely.
It's a frightening prospect, as British Columbia's Forests Minister Pat Bell told an International Energy Agency conference last week. "I am not a doomsayer," said Bell. "I am not one who wants to say we are beyond the tipping point. But I am afraid that we are getting close to that."
Logging, of course, is not the only answer to these problems. It's not even the primary solution. Instead, it should be a tool for managing forests in and around our communities.
Helena's city commission met last week to earnestly discuss something that three years ago would have been a sacrilege: logging Mount Helena city park.
The mountain park, as iconic to the capital as the Rims are to Billings or the "M" to Missoula, is now streaked with ribbons of dead, red pine trees, the victims of a fast-moving epidemic of pine bark beetles that is visible from every house in town.
Helena and Butte are in the epicenter of the infestation, but the tiny killers have also been found in the Beartooth Mountains and other Montana and Wyoming forests. The dead trees they leave behind have changed more than the landscape, say loggers, mill operators and politicians. They've changed the way people think about cutting down trees.
Question: given the epidemic is a result of climate change, why isn't the bark beetle epidemic reshaping the debate on global warming legislation?
When New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called upon "young Americans" to "get a million people on the Washington Mall calling for a price on carbon," another columnist, Mark Steyn, responded: "If you're 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you're graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade."
Which could explain why the Mall does not reverberate with youthful clamors about carbon. And why, regarding climate change, the U.S. government, rushing to impose unilateral cap-and-trade burdens on the sagging U.S. economy, looks increasingly like someone who bought a closetful of platform shoes and bell-bottom slacks just as disco was dying.
Global temps have been trending up for over a century, but in any particular year they can spike up and down quite a bit. In 1998 they spiked up far above the trend line and last year they spiked below the trend line. So 2008 was cooler than 1998.
Of course, you can prove anything you want if you cherry pick your starting and ending points carefully enough. For example: The year 2000 was below the trend line and 2005 was above it. Temps were up 0.4°C in only five years! The seas will be boiling by 2050!
So...is George Will an idiot? Does he really not understand these simple concepts? Or is he purposefully disingenuous? What stuns me is that these people are toying with a planetary catastrophe.
...if the consensus of the economic experts is grim, the consensus of the climate experts is utterly terrifying. At this point, the central forecast of leading climate models - not the worst-case scenario but the most likely outcome - is utter catastrophe, a rise in temperatures that will totally disrupt life as we know it, if we continue along our present path. How to head off that catastrophe should be the dominant policy issue of our time.
American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president's cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.
There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America's economy.
The Environmental Protection Agency may have suppressed an internal report that was skeptical of claims about global warming, including whether carbon dioxide must be strictly regulated by the federal government, according to a series of newly disclosed e-mail messages.
Gasp! Shades of Bush, suppressing science at the EPA for political reasons! Are they all the same???
Don't worry, citizens! Senator James Inhofe is there, and demands an investigation!
"It's clear that the data EPA used were outdated and inconsistent, as the report's authors have revealed," Senator Inhofe said. "Making scientific decisions while ignoring key data politicizes the scientific process and shows that important policy decisions are being made in a black box. The Agency's actions fail to meet the Administrator's commitment to transparency and openness."
"The Agency's commitment to transparency must be more than just words. The EPA cannot put a gag order on sound science," Barrasso said. "Folks' livelihoods are on the line."
...the emails reveal little more than a rather tedious employee-management dispute. Carlin's boss, Al McGartland, tells Carlin that his report won't be included in the EPA's official findings and asks him to get back to work on other issues. EPA Press Secretary Adora Andy noted that Carlin's education and work expertise are largely in economics, not climatology. That's why his comments on climate science were not included.
Apparently the economist was given lots of opportunity to voice his opinion and sit in on various committees that dealt with climate change. So why was his opinion suppressed? Because of politics?
If you read the story of how the emails came about in the first place - an economist, with climate change science as his "hobby" submitted an unsolicited opinion that took four days to research and write, and cited, among others, an astrologer - and you realize who"leaked" the emails to the media, the whole story looks ridiculous. CBS News should skulk offstage, shame faced.
Unbelievable. I'll never understand how someone could actually work for an organization like CEI. Maybe they belong the race of shape-shifting lizard men from outer space, or something, because I don't understand how you do work like this, manipulate the media with what are clear lies, when so much is at stake...
Ezra Klein recently noted that 1 in 4 coal-state Democrats voted against the recent cap-and-trade bill in the House, and saw that as a reason for optimism:
Even so, that means only one-in-four of the coal state Democrats voted no. I'd like to see those results drilled down to coal-dependent districts, but still, that's quite a bit less parochial defection than one might imagine. Indeed, hailing from a coal state wasn't nearly as strong a predictor of a given representative's vote than whether his district voted for Barack Obama. While one in four Democrats in coal states voted against cap-and-trade, three in five Democrats in districts that McCain carried voted against the bill. Similarly, seven of the eight Republicans who voted for the bill hailed from districts that Obama carried.
Another way of putting this is that the evidence suggests that this vote was less about parochial interests than partisanship and ideology. Plenty of Democrats from coal states made the judgment that they could defend this legislation to their constituents.
What's more interesting is that a quarter of the coal state Dems voted against the bill even though it had already been massively watered down to reflect coal state interests. In its current state, Waxman-Markey has very little effect on coal state interests for at least the next decade, and possibly for more like 20 years. But even so, lots of coal state Dems voted against it despite the fact that passage is a major goal of the party leadership, it's a major goal of the president, and it's the right thing to do. I'd call that pretty damn parochial.
But it may not be pressure from the coal industry that decides this thing in the Senate; instead, according to a New York Times report, it may be agricultural interests that does it in. And consider this insight from public policy professor, Barry Rabe:
[Agriculture] organizations wield greater clout in the Senate, because members there must be protective of an entire state, rather than a small congressional district, he said. With a huge swath of the country containing farmland, the complaints raise the possibility that a group will gain the ear of a sympathetic member of Congress with the power to filibuster, he said.
Sens. Baucus and Tester were singled out as especially vulnerable to the beef industry on the topic.
I'd also assume that energy lobbies would enjoy the same advantages over their states' Senators, and that coal-state defection would be at a higher rate than 1-in-4. And given that Montana is both a coal and agricultural state...I'd say we're not going to see support from Jon and Max on a cap-and-trade bill...unless we let them know anything else would be unacceptable.
...we're facing a clear and present danger to our way of life, perhaps even to civilization itself. How can anyone justify failing to act?
Well, sometimes even the most authoritative analyses get things wrong. And if dissenting opinion-makers and politicians based their dissent on hard work and hard thinking - if they had carefully studied the issue, consulted with experts and concluded that the overwhelming scientific consensus was misguided - they could at least claim to be acting responsibly.
But if you watched the debate on Friday, you didn't see people who've thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the right thing. What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of being interested in the truth. They don't like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they've decided not to believe in it - and they'll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial.
Indeed, if there was a defining moment in Friday's debate, it was the declaration by Representative Paul Broun of Georgia that climate change is nothing but a "hoax" that has been "perpetrated out of the scientific community." I'd call this a crazy conspiracy theory, but doing so would actually be unfair to crazy conspiracy theorists. After all, to believe that global warming is a hoax you have to believe in a vast cabal consisting of thousands of scientists - a cabal so powerful that it has managed to create false records on everything from global temperatures to Arctic sea ice.
Yet Mr. Broun's declaration was met with applause....
Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn't it politics as usual?
Yes, it is - and that's why it's unforgivable.
Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an "existential threat" to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole - but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.
Of course, not quite understanding that Krugman was turning the right-wingers' use of the word "treason" against them - pointing out the hypocrisy of an earlier, hyperbolic use of the term for a threat that wasn't quite all that it was made out to be, by contrasting it with the same folks' laconic attitude towards an all-too real and present catastrophic threat - naturally the usual people went completely bath*t.
Mac: "...how can you look at a plan to save the planet and decide that it's too expensive?"
And Dan Savage has a d*mn good point as he mulls Kristof's column on the increasing number of male genital deformities and the ever-decreasing sperm cell count for which scientists think a certain class of chemicals found in "agriculture, industry, and consumer products" may be responsible. Savage:
Sperm counts are falling and birth defects in boys are increasing... and to address these problems we're going to need to change the way we grow food and eliminate certain chemicals used in tens of thousands of industrial and consumer products. These kinds of big systemic changes seem unlikely when you consider that making the simplest and most obvious changes to benefit the environment-things like banning plastic shopping bags-are nearly impossible, to say nothing of taking action on climate change. We're fucked. The planet is going to roast and our sons' penises are going to fall off.
And it's because of the selfish intransigence of consumers who threaten rebellion over sparkly dishes and the politicians that feed their ignorance and misdirect their anger. I mean, shouldn't these people be p*ssed at the corporations that put the poison into our environment, the businesses and ad agencies that conned consumers into believing that easy livin' was theirs for the low, low price...? Well, it turns out easy livin' does have a price. And the long-term payment plan is a b*tch.
Man watching the global-warming deniers contort reason to sow doubt among the public is painful to watch. Yesterday the meme was that cap-and-trade legislation is expensive, it'll mean jobs and taxes. (Not so much.) Today, it's that global warming is a big, fat hoax.
Here we go again.
All you need to know is that there's near unanimity that the climate is warming, and that human activity is contributing to the warming. Among those scientific institutes that say global warming is real and supported by science include NASA, NOAA, National Academy of Sciences, American Meteorological Society, EPA, The Royal Society of the UK, American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Physics, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Royal Academy of Canada, Russian Academy of Sciences, Royal Irish Academy, Australian Academy of Sciences, Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Royal Academy of Sciences...
BP and Shell acknowledged that global warming is real. Even Exxon - the big baddie that orchestrated and funded the climate-change-denial movement - admits global warming is real and something should be done about it.
So if you're like Senator James Inhofe and believe climate change is the "greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people," you've got to set aside reason to do so. After all, what manner of hoax could so infiltrate nearly all of the major scientific organizations throughout he world? And even include the energy companies to stand to benefit the most financially from climate change skepticism? Inhofe attacks those that insist climate change is real as members of a "religion" - yet it's only faith that supports the paranoia of the denial movement in the face of so much overwhelming evidence, faith that nearly all of the scientific community and government leaders from around the world would work in concert to achieve...what, exactly? Sadly, the duplicitous goal these people have is never explicitly stated.
(And does anyone else find it ironic that, in his speech shortly after he calls for the debate on climate change to be based on the "fundamental principles of science," he recommends Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" as an appropriate reference text? Which is, you know, fiction?)
To me, it reeks of politics. Like health-care reform, it appears that Republicans are set to block any and all Democratic legislation. And to do so in this case - the cap-and-trade bill up for vote in the House today - they're essentially sowing doubt as to the very existence of climate change.
Which seems incredibly short-sighted, if you ask me.
Whoa! It looks like the Republican party fax was busy this morning sending out marching orders to the rank-and-file. Today's topic? Cap and trade!
First, I saw this bit of Eric-Cantor-inspired agitprop on Dennis Rehberg's Facebook page, claiming a cap-and-trade system would cause job losses and be, in effect, a tax on middle-class households. George Will lays it on, too, citing a study from a Spanish libertarian (and paid commenter for a US energy industry front group) claiming Spain's unemployment rate stems from its commitment to green energy projects. (Odd, no mention of investment banks.) Michelle Malkin, naturally, can't stand being left behind, and piles on with a gratuitous sliming of Al Gore, comparing him to a pig.
In response, I present you with a pair of Ezra Klein posts.
First, the CBO scored the current cap-and-trade bill in the House, and found it would cost households about $165 for the average household per year.
Which is cheap if you consider the CBO's analysis of climate change literature, and the projected change in temperature to the end of the 21st century...and you realize how much economic damage climate change would do, if unchecked.
I haven't really looked into the present cap-and-trade bill. (I will.) I admit there may be problems with it. (Is it being rushed?) But in a sense, this issue is even more crucial than health-care reform. After all, if climate change science is correct, we're headed towards eco-disaster.
So, yeah. The GOPers and their minions are trotting out the "taxes" line - but, again, it's a very selfish, very self-centered philosophy, isn't it? And it's grossly irresponsible. When you hear some conservative spout off about morals being the root cause of American decline, just nod and say, yeah, there's too much short-sighted selfishness and greed.
The U.S. House is moving pretty quickly on the American Clean Energy and Security Act (better known as Waxman-Markey). This bill is the primary vehicle for a carbon cap in Congress, which is to say it is the primary vehicle to stop global warming.
New modeling shows a 9 degree rise in global temperatures is a highly probably outcome of global warming at this point. This is what trained scientists refer to as a "Holy Fuck!" scenario, because it is really, really bad news.
So the next question, obviously, would be, "What can we do to get this shit under control?" And the answer, so far, is that the Clean Energy and Security Act is our starting point, but unlikely to be the final answer.
Here's some details:
The original draft [...] was a mixed bag: its "complementary policies" (the 75% of the bill devoted to energy stuff unrelated to cap-and-trade) were excellent, and its targets for climate pollution reduction were bolder than anticipated, but it allowed for far too many carbon offsets and left unsettled the key issue of how the pollution permits under cap-and-trade would be allocated.
Since then, the decision has apparently been made to give away permits rather than auctioning them (a net loser for most of us AND for the environment since auctions would raise revenue to rebate to offset costs to the low-income and also to build out things like mass transit and since auctions would put additional downward pressure on carbon).
And the bill probably just doesn't go far enough in attempts to limit carbon output. Now, I'm seen as a jerk in some corners because I think global warming is a big enough environmental problem that I'm open to nuclear or clean coal technology to avoid our planet frying alive. It ain't my goal, of course, but I've found the Gods have yet to issue me fiat power over our government, so I'm open to carbon sequestration and other things.
But all that said, what is fascinating to me is watching how the carbon debate mirrors the health care debate:
It comes down to how you see the big picture and the larger forces of history-that Rorschach blot. Those who have turned against the bill think there will be one chance to do this; they cite the Clean Air Act to show how crappy compromises get cemented in place in legislation and become very, very difficult to reopen. They're worried that if a weak bill is put in place, by the time the country seriously revisits it it could well be too late. It blows the one chance.
The bill's supporters think history is on their side. They see the most important goals as establishing a long-term declining cap on CO2 (the 2030 and 2050 targets remain strong in W-M), getting a carbon trading system up and running, and above all shifting off the status quo trajectory. They also point out that the U.S. desperately needs something to take to the international climate talks in Copenhagen in December. Only a show of good faith will get the rusty gears of multilateral negotiation turning again, and that process, too, cannot wait. As time passes, they say, climate change will hit harder, increasing political pressure to strengthen the system. States will accelerate their own programs; clean businesses will gain size and lobbying muscle; everyone will get much more serious about the problem and cognizant of the opportunities. This is the beginning of a journey that will only gain, not lose, momentum.
That's the single-payer folks and the HCAN team spelled out right there. It's the one-fell-swoop crowd v the incrementalists.
I had a fairly long conversation last evening with one of my favorite local conservation leaders. This discussion was at the very heart of it. When you're a principled incrementalist, the question is always what you're willing to settle for, because the reality is: if we pass major health care or global warming legislation in 2009, it will not be on the agenda again for at least several years in the same way.
Conversely, what we know from history is that when the issue dies in Congress, politicians back off their support for it, the media finds different stories, and the issue does not return again until a champion finds it once more.
Health care reform is very likely to occur this year before we move on to considering the carbon pollution caps (I don't coordinate the ball, I'm just reading the program they gave me), but this issue is going to be even tougher to navigate. It is nearly impossible to convince Americans that our healthcare system isn't broken. In the realm of climate science, disinformation still has sway.
Can we ever know, on any contentious or politicized topic, how to recognize the real conclusions of science and how to distinguish them from scientific-sounding spin or misinformation?
Congress will soon consider global-warming legislation, and the debate comes as contradictory claims about climate science abound. Partisans of this issue often wield vastly different facts and sometimes seem to even live in different realities.
In this context, finding common ground will be very difficult.
Mooney's solution?
Perhaps the only hope involves taking a stand for a breed of journalism and commentary that is not permitted to simply say anything; that is constrained by standards of evidence, rigor and reproducibility that are similar to the canons of modern science itself.
Yeah, and the newspaper publishing the new, more rigorous commentaries will be delivered by a fleet of flying pigs.
Seriously, if we want to take action on climate change, we can't wait around for utopian journalistic ethics to kick in. Right now, the very existence of climate change has warped into a political issue and calls for a political solution. But what? A massive grassrootscampaign to educate voters and pressure lawmakers to respond to the science?
Local action? Of course, local action doesn't help when the neighboring town installs a coal-burning electricity plant while you're spending municipal dollars weatherizing city buildings, does it? At some point, we need federally-enforced standards for carbon dioxide pollution.
What have you got? Do you know of any other grassroots orgs tackling this problem? Possible solutions to the current political morass?
So...George Will's op-ed today "debunked" global warming, largely by referring to a belief in the 1970s that "a major cooling of the planet was inevitable." You know, first they say it's cooling! Now they say it's warming! Make up your mind already, and spare us the hysteria!
A number of folksquickly and thoroughly dismantled Will's claim about the 1970s scientific community and global cooling. (Not to mention his claim about arctic ice levels in 1979 -- and that rebuttal came from his supposed source.) In short, Will -- besides cherry-picking, misinterpreting, and inventing data -- based his column today on a dumbed-down, out-of-context re-telling by Newsweek of a 1970s scientific study about long-term climate forecasts.
In short, Will is writing a piece that misinforms the public about science based on a news report that misinformed the public about science.
And hasn't that been one of the inanities of this "debate," how the media has almost crimanally fumbled the topic? Unable -- either from lack of ability or lack of funds -- to research the issue and discern good from bad argument, the media has generally placed the scientific community's consensus on the issue against a handful of denier groups in an attempt to "balance" the "debate." Worse still, many of the data and groups that claim global warming are financed by industries that stand to benefit financially if global warming is thought to be a hoax -- and we also know that, for some energy corporations, exploiting the media to spread doubt about global warming was a condoned strategy.
Essentially, global warming has become just another talking point in a long and growing list of talking points that the conservative movement uses to keep apostates out of their fold (shrinking that big tent) and to berate liberals with, rather than viewing warming as both a real cause for worry, and as an opportunity to demonstrate honest governance. Apparently obstructionism and denial are better tactics.
...Conservatives should be reading these pieces and paying heed to the vast consensus on global warming. Even if there areome holes in the larger argument, that's still no excuse to ignore what very well may be the global crisis of the coming century. Conservatives ought to be conserving things, and the environment should be at the top of the list-even above rugged individulaism and the "right" to low taxes.
That's the thing, we're stuck debating whether global warming even exists. And that's exactly how conservatives -- weirdly beholden to the short-term interest of a small segment of the big business community -- wants it. And the media, always attuned to the insider echo chamber, presents this as a viable alternative...
Putting aside the environmental concerns, this news is somewhat ironic because the Emperor penguin, of course, was the star of "March of the Penguins," a documentary about the animals' incredible and complex lifecycle in a harsh climate and, as a result, became the poster animal for many conservative Christians:
The movie goes on to follow the penguins as they trek back and forth over 70 miles of ice to their breeding ground and huddle together to protect their eggs in temperatures that average 70 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
To Andrew Coffin, writing in the widely circulated Christian publication World Magazine, that is a winning argument for the theory that life is too complex to have arisen through random selection.
"That any one of these eggs survives is a remarkable feat - and, some might suppose, a strong case for intelligent design," he wrote. "It's sad that acknowledgment of a creator is absent in the examination of such strange and wonderful animals. But it's also a gap easily filled by family discussion after the film."
Many conservatives also viewed the movie as the triumph of monogamy, family, and faith.
Of course, the movie and the penguins were just symbols of Christian faith. (In reality, the penguins' mating habits are a stellar example of how evolution works -- the Emperor penguin's march and rearing strategy exploit an unused niche at the edge of a habitable ecosystem, a classic evolutionary strategy.) So, one wonders, what symbolic meaning of the penguins' eventual extinction provides? That monogomy, family, and faith failed? Given that the changes to our environment -- through habit destruction, pollution, and climate change -- favors the world's weed species -- rats, knapweed, and cockroaches -- what symbolic message does that send? That God prefers filth, disease, and lurid extravagance in creating progeny?
What's certain is that the penguins' design doesn't look so "intelligent" from where I'm sitting.
And certainly the Emperor penguins' precarious position posits some uncomfortable questions for the faithful friends of the Antarctic fowl: is global warming -- and the pigeon -- key to His Great Design? Or maybe, just maybe, man in his hubris and with billion upon billions of tons of carbon dioxide is cooking God's creation...?
Now that the hubbub and rhetoric of the election is over, it's policy time. One of the most pressing needs facing the country is energy reform, not only to wean ourselves off of our dependence on foreign oil produced in unstable regions, but to mitigate the effects of global warming. And one of the surprises of the 2008 election was how little time global warming got in the presidential race - probably because both candidates wanted to reduce the country's carbon emissions, so there wasn't much to debate.
So...what's going on with global warming lately? Kevin Drum has the latest reports - and they're not good. Global warming is actually advancing quicker than our "canonical" IPCC model, which some have decried as too pessimistic.
Drum:
This is why climate scientists have been running around with their hair on fire for the past couple of years. It would be nice to think that perhaps our current climate models are too pessimistic; or even that they're right but maybe we'll end up at the low end of the predicted warming ranges; or at worst that the models are right and we'll end up right at the center. But that just doesn't seem to be the case. What it really looks like is that our current models aren't pessimistic enough and that the growth in greenhouse gas emissions is exceeding even the modelers' highest estimates.
It's probably reports like these that have spurred the Western Governors' Association to issue a four-page letter urging the Obama administration to act on global warming concerns:
Among the recommendations are annually spending tens of billions of dollars to develop clean energy technology, establishing an "aggressive" greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal to help stop global warming and proposing a mandatory national system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions through "market-based mechanisms."
Among actions suggested were more investment in mass transportation, clean energy vehicles, expanding the electric grid, and to develop more zero-emission alternative energy sources.
Regardless of what concrete actions the Obama administration undertakes, there's one thing Obama can do, right away, without any effort or taxpayer money involved, and that's to step out of the way of states seeking to implement local plans for, say, emissions standards. That's something the Bush administration has consistently blocked: the toughening of environmental regulations on the state level...a thumb to the nose to states' rights, and another reminder that contemporary conservatism isn't about small government, low taxes, or states' rights, it's about sucking up to big business. Period.
The interesting thing about this particular letter is that the Western Governors' Association is distinctly bipartisan. The chair of the group is Republican Jon Huntsman of Utah, and he admits that Republicans "have been too unwilling to champion the environment as an important issue." Now, a cynic might think this new embrace - at least in a letter - is merely a reaction to the GOP's slipping grip on the Rocky Mountain West, which may, in part, be due to its cavalier attitude towards conservation. Regardless, it's good to see that the energy-producing Western states are not only on board with an Obama green policy, but are needling him to act swiftly and to implement sweeping changes.
The comprehensive report, titled "Low Flows, Hot Trout: Climate Change in the Clark Fork Watershed," compiles more than five decades of scientific research into a 36-page document about the impacts of climate change in the Clark Fork River Basin.
The report contains no original research or new findings, but provides an easy-to-understand summary of climate change's current and potential impacts, as well as anecdotal accounts from a rancher, firefighter, fishing guide and others.
"Decades of data and observations now point to a clear conclusion: The Clark Fork River basin is experiencing a very real shift in climate," according to the report's overview. "During the next 100 years, this shift is expected to accelerate, contributing to physical, ecological, social and economic changes, many of which have already begun."
You can check out the CFC's report (or download the pdf). They're also have a free luncheon presentation of the report in conjunction with the National Wildlife Federation on July 29th at the Holiday Inn Parkside at noon. (Free lunch? Count me in!)
The report has the data specific to Western Montana - the increase in temperature, decrease in snowfall, the ever earlier runoff of the Blackfoot river. All these indices are more than just numbers, they're the measurements of the forces that shape our local ecology. When they change, our ecology changes. Our rivers will warm, killing fish; our vegetation will be drier, causing more hotter, larger fires; growing seasons will change, native flora will be challenged by invasive newcomers, and local agriculture will be impacted. And the CFC has the gory details.
Check it out. Global warming is real, and it's here.
One of the common arguments heard against developing alternative energy sources and the infrastructure to properly exploit it is that it would government interference in the marketplace, and it would cost money.
That's certainly the gist of a recent WSJ op-ed comparing Obama's and McCain's energy policies. Of course, the op-ed willfully ignored McCain's actual record on energy issues. He's advocated the federal gas tax holiday and using government money to build nuclear power plants.
As David Roberts writes over at Gristmill, McCain's "opposition to government interference in the market is selective at best, opportunistic at worst," and labels his energy policy as "a largely cinematic series of poses."
Framing the comparison as one between more or less government is a red herring. Governments are deeply and historically involved in energy markets. They set regulatory and legal parameters. They establish tax rates. They build infrastructure. They conduct diplomacy, negotiate treaties, and invade Middle Eastern countries.
Governments always and already shape energy markets. The question is how to do it better. Obama has introduced a credible, detailed approach. He evinces commitment to thinking the problem through, interest in the details, and a level of seriousness that is nowhere evident in McCain. That's the relevant comparison.
And government already dedicates huge amounts of money to infrastructure - specifically, oil-economy-based infrastructure, like roads, signals, signs, curbs, gutters, parking spaces, parking garages, sidewalks, bridges, crosswalks, paint, police and ambulance service, rest stops, bike lanes, fencing, and on- and off-ramps. And that's just a portion of the infrastructure we build to support our oil-burning economy. Oh, and toss on the economic and human costs of the Iraq war to that total.
The point here is that, yes, it will cost money. But it already costs money. The key is, how can we best spend it, in a way that decreases pollution, makes energy production sustainable, and consumption cheaper?
We already saw that the Club for Growth has begunpressuring Sens. Tester and Baucus over impending climate-change legislation, and now I'm hearing ads on the radio underwritten by power companies, too. The claim is simple: climate change legislation will hurt ordinary Montanans economically.
Which is true - if, by ordinary Montanans, you mean major stockholders and executives of Big Energy.
The goal, apparently, is not to offer any viable alternative policy to halt climate change and promote alternative energy, it's to maintain the status quo.
The goal is for a theme (e.g. climate bill - higher gas prices) each day, and the focus is much more on making political points than in amending the bill, changing the baseline text for any future debate, or affecting policy.
Grandstanding and obstructionism is the game plan for Senate Republicans.
Look who's throwing money into our state's media market! It's the Club for Growth!
They've taken out $250,000 in radio and television ads targeting Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole (N.C.) and Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), as well as Democratic Sens. Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller (both of W.Va.) and Max Baucus and Jon Tester (both of Mont.). Dole is a cosponsor of the bill, and she, Alexander, Baucus, and Rockefeller are all up for reelection in November. The ads are intended to stoke public outrage over climate legislation, which the Club hopes will push these senators away from the bill.
A couple of thoughts.
First, the legislation they're pushing against is a carbon cap-and-trade system , which is an effort to use market forces to reduce carbon emissions. Would they prefer a carbon tax? I'm guessing no. I'm guessing they don't give a rat's *ss about the issue, is what I'm guessing.
Again, and as always, corporate profit > human health and the environment.
Also in the ad they make claims that a cap-and-trade system would cost jobs and money. Unfounded allegation. A similar cap-and-trade system for sulfur and nitrogen emissions worked pretty well to curtail acid rain without damaging the economy. Actually, if you're smart, there's money to be made.
But again, corporate profit > innovation, consumers, and jobs.
And, um, there's not much of an election this year for either Senator. Why would the Club for Growth p*ss away their money in this market? Normally, I'd say, go ahead, spend your money! But there are already otherwise intelligent people doffing tinfoil hats over climate change.
Expect a bitter fight over this issue after January.
So much for states' rights, eh? At least that's the message the administration is giving California, which passed a 2002 law requiring cars sold in the state to cut their emissions by 30 percent - to "roughly 35 miles per gallon by 2016." The federal government's block on that bill looks unconstitutional - so other states are passing bills that set the same standards as California.
Industry lobbyists are on the move. They're actively fighting against similar bills in different states. So far, in places like Minnesota and Arizona, opposition has been stiff, and emissions regulation bills have stalled.
One state's knuckling under to lobbying pressure and federal power might surprise you:
In Montana, Gov. Brian Schweitzer came out against state-level regulation of automobile greenhouse-gas emissions after a visit in March from Dave McCurdy.
Gov. Schweitzer now says Montana is too sparsely populated to force auto makers to build more fuel-efficient vehicles. An advisory group established by the governor said adopting the California law "would ensure that efficient vehicles are sold in Montana, and that less efficient vehicles that could no longer be sold in other states are not sent to Montana because of lower standards there."
Dave McCurdy is the president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
Schweitzer's argument seems a little odd. After all, if Montana adopts California's standards, there's likely to be an already large market for efficient vehicles to drive production. Montana alone, of course, couldn't "drive" production for anything - except maybe semi-automatic rifles. But California can. And will.
Will ignoring higher efficiency standards mean that Montana will become a dumping-ground for auto manufacturers' low-efficiency rejects? If so, would that mean a scarcity of low-efficiency cars? And can we long-distance driving Montanans afford that, with rising gas prices?
