Welcome to Edition #4 of This week in climate change.
This series looks to add more debate and attention to the issue as the Senate moves to pass climate change legislation. We all need to come together and do more than ever if we are going to overcome the defining challenge of our generation.
What's that?
We already have plenty of "eco series"?
Isn't that what DK Greenroots & eKos are for?
Indeed, in the past there have been many great DK Greenroots diaries. The goal of this series is to supplement the good work done on that front, and to raise awareness about climate issues.
This series, This week in climate change, narrows its focus to climate-related items only.
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Climate news, Climate Diary Rescue, Climate Blog Roundup, Action Items and more below the fold.
This week in climate change is a new weekly series at Daily Kos devoted to climate change and related news. The hope is that we can engage in constructive debate about the issues raised by the topics presented, and coalesce around the action items proposed each week.
The diary for now will appear Wednesday afternoons, around 1PM Pacific.
THE LEDE
Fortunately nothing major happened this week, so there is no top story about which we should be concerned.
Everything is just peachy in the world, and climate change is closer than ever to being solved. Americans have made necessary sacrifices in their own behaviors so that we are energy self-sufficient and our national carbon footprint is offset by our aggressive tree-planting campaigns.
The time of rejoicing is upon us.
Nothing to see here...
...
And for anyone who for the past week was in a cave, under a rock, with your fingers in your ears, these Dkos tags might lead you to find views contrary to the opinions stated above.
TAG = Gulf
TAG = oil
TAG = Deepwater Horizon
TAG = BP
TAG = Oilpocalypse
I stand by my claim that April 2010 was the worst in American history when it comes to the consequences of extractive fossil fuels.
From NASA, April 29th:
From NASA, May 3rd:
If you weren't sad and angry already, then clicking this link will perhaps alter your perspective. (WARNING: Graphic Dead Animal Photos)
GOOD NEWS
We on the political left, especially environmentalists, don't get enough good news lately. The past decade ("The Ohs") was our worst in 40 years. Let's try to briefly look at the minor victories more often before we find ourselves getting too down.
M'kay?
• Google invests in US windfarms
Search giant makes first direct investment in large scale renewable project, ploughing $38.8m into two North Dakota windfarms
The wind farms are expected to make use of cutting edge turbine technologies, pioneering the use of control systems that can constantly monitor output from each turbine and continuously adjust individual blade angles to improve efficiency and enable the use of blades that are 15 per cent larger than on standard turbines.
Not sure I'm ready to endorse this idea completely.
It won't seem like such good news once they have their first major wind spill.
• Green Jobs Slowly Ticking Upward
By SINDYA N. BHANOO
Green: Business
The green economy is growing, but slowly.
That’s according to a report released by the Economics and Statistics Administration, a division of the Department of Commerce. Green services and businesses amounted to just 1 to 2 percent of the private business economy in 2007. And there were 1.8 million to 2.4 million green jobs in 2007, less than 2 percent of the total work force.
Two large coastal states headed by Republicans guvs will halt and/or abandon their offshore plans.
• Don't-Drill-Baby-Don't-Drill: Schwarzenegger Abandons Offshore Plan; So Should Obama
John Nichols
May 4, 2010
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is going green on this one.
The Republican governor abruptly abandoned his support for the controversial Tranquillon Ridge drilling project off the coast of California’s Santa Barbara County Monday.
Schwarzenegger says he was convinced to do so by the images of the disaster off Louisiana.
For a chilling compilation of such images, I suggest this:
BOSTON.COM
• Va. officials reconsider support for drilling after gulf oil accident
By Anita Kumar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
RICHMOND -- Some Virginia leaders are reconsidering their support for drilling off the state's coast after a fatal well accident in the Gulf of Mexico, even as Gov. Robert F. McDonnell continues to lobby aggressively to drill for oil and natural gas without delay
• from DWG's recommended diary:
EPA announces new regulations of coal ash as hazardous waste
EPA Director Lisa Jackson just announced that the agency is going to regulate coal combustion waste as hazardous with special allowances for some secondary uses. The complicated issue is that they are still considering two approaches to do it and want public comment over the next 90 days.
OTHER NEWS
• Bill McKibben wants us to also look past the shiny object floating in the Gulf. Usually it is the dangers we cannot see that are the most dangerous, no?
The Oil Slick You Can't See
But here's the problem: An even bigger slick -- this one of acid -- is spreading across the entire ocean. It's doing damage far more profound than even the oil. But since you can't see it, nothing's happened.
The day after the gulf rig blew out, the National Research Council quietly issued a report on what exactly carbon dioxide, which is warming the atmosphere, is doing to seawater. As the oceans absorb some of the carbon our factories and engines pour into the atmosphere, the "chemistry of the ocean is changing at an unprecedented rate and magnitude," the report said. "The rate of change exceeds any known to have occurred for at least the past hundreds of thousands of years."
Already fishermen report that oysters aren't reproducing, and biologists are saying that coral reefs may not survive the century. "This increase in [ocean] acidity threatens to decimate entire species, including those that are at the foundation of the marine food chain," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
For more info on this topic, there is a good 98-second video on the Climate.gov site.
• Uganda's highest ice cap splits on Mt Margherita
Uganda's Rwenzori Mountains in 1987 on the left and in 2005 on the right
The ice cap on Uganda's highest peak has split because of global warming, Uganda's Wildlife Authority (UWA) says.
The glacier is located at an altitude of 5,109m (16,763ft) in the Rwenzori mountain range, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
(snip)
Scientists say glaciers in the Rwenzori range could disappear within 20 years.
• Ezra Klein changed a word here and there from a title I used just a couple weeks ago to make his thesis into a question, sounding nicer, making it PG.
Why isn't Obama talking about climate change?
On the other hand, a five-degree centigrade rise in global temperatures will be an unbelievable global catastrophe. It will dwarf the devastation caused by the spill. And the responsible thing for Obama to do is to explain that: Dependence on fossil fuels ensures oil spills, and it also ensure a warming climate, and we need to understand the Deepwater spill as not just a tragedy, but a predictable outcome, and a harbinger of much worse. That is not politicizing a tragedy. That is being honest about what caused it, and what it means.
• HuffPo:
Business Groups Seek To Suspend AB32, California Greenhouse Gas Law
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A coalition of business groups turned in signature petitions Monday for a ballot initiative that would unravel Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's top environmental priority.
If the California Jobs Initiative qualifies for the November ballot, as expected, voters will be asked to consider putting the brakes on the nation's most far-reaching global warming law.
Schwarzenegger immediately blasted "greedy oil companies" for trying to set back his sweeping environmental policy.
I always knew that the Governator was too liberal Socialist Communist Envirofascist sane for today's GOP.
CLIMATE BLOG HIGHLIGHTS
This is what "fantastic coverage of environmental issues" looks like.
This week featuring the following:
• Grist
• Solve Climate
• Climate Progress
Grist:
Wake up, Obama. The Gulf spill is our big chance
by Jonathan Hiskes
30 Apr 2010 11:50 AM
It is a critical moment that Democrats are insane not to use, but the KGL energy bill isn't the plan we need--it's the least-terrible bill that was believed to have a chance of passing in the Senate. Now, with this ongoing crisis changing the political climate, there should be an opening for a better bill.
Says Maggie Fox, president of Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection: "This tragic event is a deafening wakeup call that America's dependence on fossil fuels cannot continue. We know this dependence is a direct threat to our national security. This massive spill is a stark reminder of the environmental and economic dangers we face as well."
Climate Progress :
As BP’s oil disaster devastates gulf region, Landrieu and Boehner call for expanding oil drilling
May 4, 2010
House Republican leaders are once again sounding the drumbeat for passage of their sidelined pro-drilling energy reform package, even as state and federal officials scramble to stem a massive Gulf oil spill.
"This tragedy should remind us that America needs a real, comprehensive energy plan, like Republicans’ ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy," House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Monday in a statement.
The GOP proposal, which was first rolled out in the summer of 2008 and has made multiple appearances since then, would, among other things, open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration and lift the moratoriums on drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.
I think the word is Chutzpah.
more from CP:
Flashback to 2008 MMS sex-for-oil scandal
May 4, 2010
You’re going to be hearing about the Minerals Management Service in the coming days, since their "mission is to manage the mineral resources of the Outer Continental Shelf in an environmentally sound and safe manner."
After eight years of Bush-Cheney, they became absurdly cozy with the industry, signed off on Big Oil’s desire for voluntary, "trust me," self-regulation — and caved in to industry demands not to mandate the backup shut off switch for offshore rigs that Brazil and Norway require.
Solve Climate :
Research Questions Value of Cutting Black Carbon as a Global Warming Solution
Indirect Cloud Effects Can Cause Cooling Effect, Study Suggests
by Dave Levitan - May 3rd, 2010
In recent years, enthusiasm for lowering global emissions of black carbon has increased. But new research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters suggests that black carbon's contribution in the climate system is not so straightforward as once thought.
While there is little doubt that the fine black particles released from diesel and biomass cook stoves warm the planet by sitting in the atmosphere and absorbing energy, they also affect cloud formatioin in ways that can create a cooling mechanism, the study says.
"If we controlled black carbon, potentially the magnitude of the reduced cloud reflectivity and amount of cloud coverage could counteract the beneficial cooling," said Wei-Ting Chen, of the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and lead author of the new study.
"When people talk about policies of mitigating black carbon, they should consider the combined effects of both the heating reduction and the indirect cloud response."
Combining the two effects in a scenario where the world manages to cut black carbon emissions by half could actually result in a very slight increase in warming, rather than the opposite as is usually thought, according to the paper.
My read on that story is that it could spell good news for Biodiesel, especially the kind made from algae and other less farming-intensive crops like switchgrass.
HuffPo Green :
Massey CEO Blankenship Says His Critics Are 'Evil'
Well isn't that special?
DKOS CLIMATE DIARIES
• JnH tried to give us something to laugh about in another great edition of TWIEC. For me, the laughs were tough to muster through gritted teeth. This one might be the rare exception:
Offshore Drilling by Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune,
Buy this cartoon:
The Week in Editorial Cartoons - A Cry for Help
by JekyllnHyde
If we don't lessen -- and eventually end -- our chronic, growing dependence on fossil fuels, we will, through our self-absorbed and selfish ways, continue to destroy the very habitats that such creatures thrive in. After all, access to (relatively) cheap oil is neither mentioned in nor mandated by the U.S. Constitution.
• Bluefin tries to clarify some stuff in a first diary about which one can be proud-
The MMS and Deepwater Horizon
There seems to be a lot of confusion over these subjects, although we, along with the rest of the universe, are slowly presenting an expanding body of public factual information about this incident. I have been researching MMS issues for around the last four years, ever since the "drill, baby, drill" types became vocal, doing their masters' bidding, with an eye to the manipulation of the MMS bid process. IE: the attempted stampeding of the bid process in order to lower/limit bid prices.
The issuance of the 'pending' and 'final' incident reports, here, and here by the MMS and US Coast Guard will of course finally clear things up eventually.
• Oil and Reef Diversity
by Fossil
The Keys have the second most diverse reef system in the Caribbean. Of the top 10 most diverse reefs two are in Florida, one in the Keys, and both will be impacted when the oil hits the gulf stream.
However, the damage may have already been done. The diversity of the reefs in Bonaire and the Keys are due to their locations in the Brazil current and Gulf Stream respectively. Planktonic forms riding those currents settle in those two locations. And, while speculation, I will bet that the planktonic life which ride the Gulf stream to settle on the Florida reefs has already suffered damage. Even were the oil to stay put where it is, the Florida reefs may already be impacted.
• Hair MATS soak up OIL
by Southern Mouth
hair - from salons, groomers, barber shops, etc. The hair is woven into a mat and it soaks up the oil from both land and sea AND GULF!
Best part:
"As an added bonus, hair can be wrung out and used again, and the oil can be recovered as well" (CNN ).
From the link in the diary-
(and also an H/T to jotter):
Recycling Human Hair To Make Eco Friendly Products
McCrory noticed how the fur on otters helped to trap the oil, so he came up with the idea to use human hair to clean up oil spills. He showed his idea to NASA and the rest is hair history! His idea helped inspire the OttiMat, which soaks up about 7.8 gallons of oil in less than 3 minutes. It can also be wrung out and reused more than 100 times. Here’s a demonstration:
• Days later, we get another very hairy diary from Noor B:
Cut your hair, save the Gulf
• And yet another!
Action: Show You Care, Send Your Hair! (Gulf Cleanup)
by HoosierDeb
Matteroftrust.org is organizing a massive effort to arrange incoming shipments of 'supplies' as well as groups to assemble the absorbent booms for quick deployment.
For once, traditional media has picked up on this effort and is actually promoting it! According to Lisa Gautier, President of Matteroftrust.org, assembly parties called Boom B Q's, are being set up now and several major news outlets, including CNN and Reuters, will be covering their progress. MSNBC had a story out back on May 1st and did another one today.
Other Env'al Series
The week in dirty coal by DWG
Alternative Energy Round-Up by mark louis
Sunday Train by BruceMcF
EcoJustice by various artists
Climate Change News Roundup by PDNC
Macca's Meatless Monday by beach babe in fl
Hike On! by by RLMiller
ECSTASY by various artists
As always, please list your own favorite climate diaries that I didn't list above in the comments below.
INTO ACTION
• The Audubon Society
h/t roses
Audubon is working with many other public and private conservation organizations to recruit and coordinate volunteers and connect them with oiled-wildlife response leaders to help in the recovery effort. Hands-on work to protect and save birds and other wildlife will be a complex and potentially dangerous process, and first and foremost it is important that only trained volunteers participate on the front lines. Untrained volunteers can pose a risk not only to themselves, but to the birds and wildlife they are trying to save, so we ask that you please be patient. We will be in touch soon with more information on where your help is need most urgently or we may send your contact information to agencies that are looking for specific kinds of volunteers.
Like on Facebook
Of course, they could also use money.
DONATION PAGE
Help Us Make a Difference for Conservation
Your support will help Audubon advocate for policies that protect both our environment and our economy.
• I'd like to encourage everyone to follow the lead set by WarrenS. For over 5 months, he has sent an LTE or letter to a politician about climate issues. Preaching to the choir in a DKos diary is nice and all, but getting our message out to a wider audience (Read: Those who REALLY need it) is also important.
Video from MoveOn:
Dear President Obama —
It is becoming clearer by the day that offshore drilling for oil is too high-risk an activity. The idea that fossil fuels are inherently cheaper than renewable energy sources is now as obsolete as the phlogiston theory of combustion. Oil and coal are only cheap if we don’t count the enormous costs of cleanup, public health effects, and environmental/climatic impacts (not to mention all those expensive wars we wage to protect our oil sources). Renewables are only expensive if we don’t count the value inherent in an unspoiled environment, in benign climatic effects, and no longer spending billions of dollars every year propping up the big oil companies.
As the Deepwater Horizon disaster shows us, we can no longer afford the potential negative impacts of offshore drilling. This catastrophe makes it crystal clear what was obvious to some of us quite some time ago: there is no room at the negotiating table for Big Oil, for they have abdicated their responsibilities to the citizens of the USA, and of the world.
Please reinstate the ban on offshore drilling immediately.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
Even if we can't commit to the same lofty goal of 7 letters/week, maybe a smaller number (1 or 2/week?) by a larger number of people (i.e.: Greater than 1) will make a big impact.
• From RLMiller
People who are concerned about [offshore oil should] comment online to the federal agency that has to listen. The MMS website for public scoping (agenda-setting) will accept comments through June 30. Tell them you're concerned about tourism. Tell them you're concerned about sea turtles and other vulnerable critters. Tell them you're concerned about safety. Just tell them!
A sample letter from the WWF HERE
If this controversial portion of the plan is implemented, drilling will begin there this summer.
This is your chance to tell the administration to live up to its promise: No drilling in the Arctic until scientific studies tell us if, where, when and how it is safe.
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What actions do you guys suggest? Leave items in the comments and I'll update the diary and include them here.
I tried to spend not too much more than a couple hours on this diary to inspire others to try doing their own version in the future. In the comments below, please mention if you are willing to try and host this series on a future date.
Thanks for reading, recommending, and participating in the comments.
