Tag Archives: Global Warming

Atmospheric CO2: 400 PPM on May 9, 2013

Atmospheric CO2, Measured at Mauna Loa, 1960 - Present

Atmospheric CO2, Measured at Mauna Loa, 1960 – Present

Atmospheric CO2 hit 400 PPM on Thursday, May 9, 2013, as measured at the Koana Loa observatory. This is an increase of 85 ppm, 26.98%, from 1960. This is why Bill McKibben, of 350.org, calls our planet Eaarth. It’s weather, climate, and ecology are different than the one those of us who are over 30 – or over 12 – were born on.  National Geographic, summed it up well,  here:

“Greenhouse gas highest since the Pliocene, when sea levels were higher and the Earth was warmer.” 

The scientists are taking the data – increased atmospheric carbon dioxide – and asking two questions:

  1. Why is it increasing?
  2. What are the likely effects?

The journalists and bloggers, like Geoffrey Lean, at the Telegraph, asks, here, “Did the contentious global warming ‘hockey stick’ graph get it right?”  He could have asked “Did the scientists – and the environmentalists – get it right?  And if so, shouldn’t we stop burning fossil fuels?” 

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Global Warming, New York, The Jersey Shore, and Canada

People enjoying the beach in Montreal, Canada

Image 1:  People enjoying the beach in Montreal, Canada, courtesy Jazz Hostels

While climate change and global warming will mean longer and hotter summers and shorter and warmer winters farther north in the northern hemisphere than previously, and even though we make like longer hotter summers and shorter, warmer winters …

Warmer and shorter winters mean thinner ice on frozen lakes – and people crashing through the thin ice and drowning in places like Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Alaska, and Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, and British Columbia.

Longer hotter summers also mean warmer oceans and an atmosphere that can hold more heat.

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What If … Gore had been President?

In the XB Cold Fingers song, “Sunbathing In Siberia,” (Listen / Try or Buy / Lyrics ) Al Gore I wrote,

“If Gore had been awarded the White House
he’d chain us to Kyoto, don’t ya see.
There’d be solar panels on the rooftops,
wind power, clean power, almost free.”

While the song is a tongue-in-cheek look at energy, climate change, and the election of 2000; what if Gore had been the 43rd President?

In this series of posts, I’ll explore this scenario in terms of what it would have meant for the Supreme Court, foreign policy and defense.

  • Who would Gore have appointed to the Supreme Court?
  • How would they have decided Citizens United and Florence v Burlington?
  • What about September 11 – would the 19 terrorists have been able to hijack 4 planes and crash two into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon?
  • If so, would we have gone to war in Iraq and Afghanistan?
  • If not, would we have gone to war in Iraq anyway?
  • And what about Iran? Israel? The Arab Spring?
  • And the economy here in the United States?

This next post in the series looks at the Supreme Court. Stay tuned.

September 11, and the Future of Energy

Combined Cycle Power Plant

Combined Cycle Power Plant

The Combined Cycle Power Plant, “Kombikraftwerk” can harness wind, sunlight, water, and biofuels to meet ALL Germany’s electric power needs, 365 days per year, regardless of weather conditions.  And if it “werks” in Germany, it will work here.

Professor Jurgen Schmid and his colleagues at the Institute for Solar Energy Supply Systems of the University of Kassel, in Germany, with funding from Enercon GmbH, SolarWorld AG and Schmack Biogas AG, have developed the Combined Cycle Power Plant, or “Kombikraftwerk” and proven that they can use wind, solar, biomass and hydro to meet ALL Germany’s electricity needs around the clock regardless of weather conditions. Schmid says.“If renewables continue to grow as they have done in the past, they’ll provide around 40% of Germany’s electricity needs by 2020. We could therefore achieve 100% by the middle of the century.” Information on the Combined Cycle Power Plant is here, and here, at “Germany’s Renewable Energy Information Platform. Continue reading →

Everything you need to know about Global Warming in 5 Minutes

Unlike Warren Buffett, Jeremy Grantham, chairman of Grantham Mayo van Otterloo, GMO.com, is not a “celebrity investor.” And also unlike Buffett, Grantham is an environmentalist. Jeremy and his wife, Hannelore, established the Grantham Foundation for the protection of the environment, and The Grantham Research on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. Like Buffett, Mr. Grantham talks to investors who hire him, and via his investments, charities, and other work, he talks to the world.  Mr. Grantham recently wrote “Everything you want to know about Global Warming in 5 minutes“,

Two ideas stand out:

Climate warming involves hard science. The two most prestigious bastions of hard science are the National Academy in the U.S. and the Royal Society in the U.K., to which Isaac Newton and the rest of that huge 18th century cohort of brilliant scientists belonged.  The presidents of both societies wrote a note recently, emphasizing the seriousness of the climate problem and that it was man-made. …  Both societies have also made full reports on behalf of their membership stating the same.  Do we believe the whole elite of science is in a conspiracy?  At some point in the development of a scientific truth, contrarians risk becoming flat earthers.

Conspiracy theorists claim to believe that global warming is a carefully constructed hoax driven by scientists desperate for … what?  Being needled by nonscientific newspaper reports, by blogs, and by right-wing politicians and think tanks?

The full text is below:

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Myth and Science on Global Warming

Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense

This article presents and debunks myths about climate change.

Evidence for human interference with Earth’s climate continues to accumulate

By John Rennie, Scientific American, November 30, 2009

“On November 18, U.S. Sen. James R. Inhofe (R–Okla.) took the floor of the Senate and proclaimed 2009 to be “The Year of the Skeptic.” Had the senator’s speech marked a new commitment to dispassionate, rational inquiry, a respect for scientific thought and a well-grounded doubt in ghosts, astrology, creationism and homeopathy, it might have been cause for cheer. But Inhofe had a more narrow definition of skeptic in mind: he meant “standing up and exposing … the costs and the hysteria behind global warming alarmism.”

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Coal – Going the Way of Nuclear Power

What killed nuclear power was not Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, or the demonstrations of public opposition such as at Seabrook, NH in the late 1970’s or the Musicians United for Safe Energy concerts in New York, Sept. 19-23, 1979, (both of which I attended).

What killed nuclear power was the realization by the bankers on Wall St. that after an event like Three Mile Island their multi-billion investment very quickly became a multi-billion pile of junk with virtually zero salvage value and a tremendously negative return on investment.

And coal today?

According to the National Energy Technology Laboratory “Historically, actual capacity has been seen to be significantly less than proposed capacity. For example, the 2002 report /of the National Energy Technology Lab, NETL, of the Department of Energy, DOE/ listed 36,161 MW of proposed /coal/ capacity by the year 2007 when actually only 4,478 MW (12%) were constructed.” Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants, NETL, Office of Systems Analyses and Planning, by Erik Shuster, Feb. 18, 2008, pg, 4, 5.

Housley Carr, writing in McGraw Hill’s Engineering News-Record, reported on the impending demise of  “King Coal” Uncertainty Over Carbon has Coal Plants Stymied

with public, regulatory and lender concern growing, many proposed plants are being cancelled. Permits issued for others require offsets for their carbon emissions, while the ones that remain in permitting are being intensely challenged. The U. S. Envrionmental Protection Agency must regulate carbon-dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act, the Supreme Court ruled last year, but Congress has failed to give EPA guidelines for a national policy. Three investment banks last month announced guidelines they would use to assess the risks of investment in coal-fired generation in the absense of a national policy. Further, the largest electric utility in Kansas, citing “seismic shifts in the assumptions shaping our industry,” issued a strategic plan that knocks the crown from King Coal’s head.”

Artist creates solar/wind powered "emergency respond

(Via Inhabitat) Which may, in fact, exceed FEMA’s exertions – despite the fact that, as Paul Villinski, a New York-based artist has demonstrated, it’s entirely possible to construct livable/usable emergency structures which rely on solar and wind power. From Bridget Steffen at Inhabitat, Solar Powered Mobile Emergency Response Studio:

Better yet, make sure you read the whole piece and see the images – the one above the jump, taken alone, doesn’t do it justice.NB: as of this writing – October 30th – Villinski’s bandwidth limit had been exceeded. Waiting and checking back later will, we think, be worth it.

Villinski – main site.

Emergency Response Studio.

Other coverage.

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Gore proposes 10-year plan to produce entire U.S. energy consumption via renewables

Via Ron Fournier of the Associated Press, Gore sets ‘moon shot’ goal on climate change, dated today (16 July 2008). An excerpt:

Just as John F. Kennedy set his sights on the moon, Al Gore is challenging the nation to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years, an audacious goal he hopes the next president will embrace.

The Nobel Prize-winning former vice president said fellow Democrat Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain are “way ahead” of most politicians in the fight against global climate change.

[We haven’t examined either candidates’ positions on these issues carefully – but we take Senator Gore’s implicit  point – that the necessity will be present whoever wins the election – Eds.]

–  snip –

The Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan group that he chairs, estimates the cost of transforming the nation to so-called clean electricity sources at $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion over 30 years in public and private money. But he says it would cost about as much to build ozone-killing coal plants to satisfy current demand.

“This is an investment that will pay itself back many times over,” Gore said. “It’s an expensive investment but not compared to the rising cost of continuing to invest in fossil fuels.”

Excerpted from Gore sets ‘moon shot’ goal on climate change. By Ron Fournier of The Associated Press.

We understand – or believe – that the AP has been concerned about excessive use of their reports. We believe the above excerpt complies with the “fair use” doctrine. Also – Fournier’s lead – the comparison to the space program – is particulary apt, and should be useful in public discussion.