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Several months ago, The Washington Post editorial page ever so innocently asked:

What’s going on?

The issue at hand: that scientists are clear as to the realities of human impacts on the climate but the public is confused.

Contrary to what you may have read lately, there are few reputable scientists who would disagree with anything in that first paragraph. Yet suddenly we’re hearing that climate change is in doubt and that action to combat it is unlikely. What’s going on?

What The Post‘s editorial board failed to address (even hint at acknowledging) is their own institution’s role in fostering confusion and giving a podium to those intent on confusing the public about the scientific discussion of climate change and its policy implications. One can simply wonder at the audacity of asking that simple question, with such an innocent tone, considering the column inches given over to the likes of Sarah Palin, Bjorn Lomborg, George Will, and … With having dedicated so much of their newspaper to promoting a Faux and Balanced discussion, is there really any reason to wonder “What’s going on?”

This past week, this press release went out:

The Washington Post, the leading source on politics, today introduces a new politics homepage, PostPolitics.com. The new site offers the best compendium of U.S. political news, as well as the in-depth, original reporting and analysis that has made The Post Washington’s top online destination for politics. ….

“If you care about American politics, you’ll want to bookmark PostPolitics or make it your homepage,” said Washington Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli. “No other politics website in the capital reaches more people than we do, and the reason is our depth, our expertise and our talent. The new site builds on that.”

Amid the typically glowing pablum, one (sadly) quite interesting item:

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity is the Washington Post’s exclusive launch sponsor of PostPolitics.com.

It would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. The coal industry bought access to the 2008 political campaign by sponsoring presidential debates. It has spent $100s of millions bringing us things like Santas handing out “clean coal” and “clean coal” carolers. The ACCCE, since its “founding” a few years ago, has been right in the center of this effort to white wash coal’s deadly impacts and ACCCE has been, for example, implicated in such above-board tactics as the sending of letters to Members of Congress using organizations’ letter heads without permission.

The opening days of Post Politics featured ads blaring about the “clean coal” and other deceptions from the “exclusive sponsor”.

As of yet, based on the searches that I’ve done, Post Politics has yet to cover coal or the coal industry thus the “exclusive sponsor”‘s direct impact on reporting is, as of yet, unknown.

From that Post press release

“What we bring to the often muddled political landscape is a clarity that is unmatched and an authority you can trust,” said Washington Post National Editor Kevin Merida.

Sorry, Kevin, but the Post’s tradition of faux and balanced reporting on what is likely the most serious challenge of of this century (catastrophic climate chaos) calls into question that “unmatched authority” and whether one can “trust” that “authority”. Jumping into this new endeavor with the ACCCE as the Post’s “exclusive sponsor” doesn’t generate confidence that the site will turn around the Post’s role in the “going on” of public increasing confused about climate change as the scientific community becomes ever more certain.

NOTE: Two truly excellent new books in this domain which I am planning to review.

• Naomi Oreskes & Erik M Conway, Merchants of DOUBT: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco to Global Warming. This is a powerful book, laying out the clearly the truth that enabled the satiric film: Thank you for smoking. Cynical, misguided, manipulative, destructive, diabolical are just a few words merited for the scientists at the center of concerted campaigns to create confusion and misdirection in American (and global) society about issues of, literally, life and death. Powerfully written, compelling, damning, and important … a high recommend …
• Stephen H Schneider, Science as a Contact Sport: inside the battle to save Earth’s climate provides a window, from what of the world’s leading scientists who has been immersed in climate science for decades. Schneider’s book reads like a who’s who of the world’s greatest scientists, providing a perspective on the challenge of communicating climate science from scientific meetings, to the Reagan White House, to the Johnny Carson show.

Hat-tip to Brendan DeMelle at DeSmogBlog with Washington Post Teams with Dirty Coal Front Group ACCCE on PostPolitics.com Launch.  And, a third book to highlight: Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming

Painful times call for painful humor to help release the tension and, at times, find whatever Silver Lining might exist in disastrous circumstances.

Looking to the seemingly endless wave descending on the Gulf Coast, threatening fragile environmental spaces and many different economic activities (fishing, tourism, …), it would be easy to imagine that the following headline would be satire:

British Petroleum Finalist for U.S. Government’s  SAFETY Award For Excellence (SAFE)  for High Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Activity

It would be easy to imagine but, considering the sheen covering ever-more of the Gulf Coast (and killing ever more of the Gulf’s inhabitants), it is hard to imagine that this is the reality. British Petroleum, the leading name in what might be the largest single environment incident in the global addiction to fossil fuels, is one of three finalists for this award from the US Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS).

The award ceremony, scheduled for this coming Monday, has been indefinitely delayed.

The Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) announced today that the 2010 Annual Industry SAFE Awards Luncheon scheduled for May 3, 2010 at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas has been postponed.

The ongoing situation with the Transocean Deepwater Horizon drilling accident has caused the MMS to dedicate considerable resources to the successful resolution of this event, which will conflict with holding this ceremony next week.

Hmmm…

Do note that the OTC, itself, is still on Monday through Wednesday even though there are some luncheon spots open.

One has to wonder: was BP to receive the SAFE award for High OCS Activity from MMS and someone decided that it might not look so good for a MMS official to give a BP executive a plaque for safe drilling as news reports of oil hitting the coasts mounts?
Hat-tip to OregonDem.

UPDATE:  See Wonkroom, Five Months Before Disaster, BP Testified Offshore Drilling Is ‘Safe And Protective Of The Environment’.

BP America’s vice president of Gulf of Mexico exploration, David Rainey, opposed the proposed MMS rules and defended the existing regulatory system. Rainey claimed that drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) has been shown to be “both safe and protective of the environment”:

I think we should remember that scientific knowledge is always moving forward. And actually using the best available and the most up-to-date scientific information is part of the current regulatory system. And it supports the OCS leasing, exploration, and development program. And I think we need to remember that OCS has been going on for the last 50 years, and it has been going on in a way that is both safe and protective of the environment.

During the 2008 campaign, a Palin-McCain Michigan ad had this line:

“Offshore drilling to reduce the price of gas to spur truck sales.”

How many times does it need to be said? Offshore drilling is, at best, a 1 cent, 1 percent solution 20 years off to the question of gasoline prices. According to Department of Energy analysis, offshore drilling would:

1. Lead to a 1.2 cent reduction in gasoline prices.
2. Provide 1 percent of today’s US oil demand and 0.25 percent of global demand (about 200,000 barrels per day of production compared to 20 million barrels/day of US demand and global demand (over 80 million barrels / day)
3. Do this by 2030 …

Yes, a 1 cent, 1 percent solution, 20 years from now would “spur truck sales”.

And, of course, without risk because (as BP told us) offshore drilling is safe and clean …
There is a better way.

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In the will they, won’t they, those fighting for climate change mitigation wait to see whether Kerry-Graham-Lieberman will drop a climate bill and, if they do so, what will it contain.

There are many ways to judge what comes out but the simplest and, for me, most important is to consider basic principles. At their core, just six words:

• Scientifically Sound
• Polluters Pay
• Social Equity

If climate legislation meets the standards implied by these six words, expect strong support from across the environmental, environmental justice, and clean energy communities.

If not …

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In the face of a range of front-page disasters, various agencies have stepped up their investigations of fossil-fuel industries. There are serious investigations going on of natural gas fracking. The deaths in West Virginia have led to ramped up Federal mine inspections, with more aggressive action, which is following announcements for more serious analysis of the impacts of mountain-top removal. And, the flames and continuing oil leakage in the Gulf of Mexico has now led to a circumstance where every branch of government is investigating the offshore oil rig explosion and resulting oil spill.

After the starvation of resources for serious oversight of polluting energy industries during the Bush-Cheney Administration, we have to wonder whether the effort to conduct meaningful oversight and investigation of fossil fuel practices would have strained available resources even without these fossil fuel disasters demanding deployment of significant resources both to respond to them and, then, investigate them?

While remaining uncertain as to just how bad it is, the concerns that KGL will cross the line from mediocrity to counterproductive are increasing. Here is a guest post from Craig Altemose laying out how he sees that line having already passed.

For the past year and a half or so, I have been largely neutral towards federal climate legislation.  I have recognized that in their various forms, the federal bills have fallen far short of what we need to achieve in order to prevent catastrophe.  At the same time, the consensus among policy experts in D.C. was that this was the best we could accomplish at the time, and we needed to pass something so that the framework was in place, and we can later amend it.

The latest draft of Kerry-Graham-Lieberman has crossed the line.

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Two weeks ago, the Center for American Progress issued American Fuel: Developing Natural Gas for Heavy Vehicles. This misleading and error-prone report strongly supports misguided policy concepts to subsidize heavily transitioning American transportation from one fossil fuel (oil) to a slightly lower polluting alternative (natural gas). Even though political momentum exists behind this concept, it does not make “T Boone Pickens … bold plan” a good one. The report asserts that subsidizing natural gas into transportation offers a path to reducing oil demand by 1.25 million barrels/day by 2035, would not impact the cost of natural gas for other uses, and provides a benefit for carbon reduction. Putting aside some uncertainty about optimistic assumptions about future natural gas production, choosing to emphasize natural gas for transportation is a far more costly and less effective path to reducing oil demand, controlling natural gas prices, and reducing carbon emissions than a myriad of other option already on the table.

Simply put … this is a flawed and misguided report supporting a flawed and misguided policy proposal that would send the nation down a flaw, misguided, and reckless path.

What are we talking about here? The report fails to

• Lay out, openly, serious issues like cost to the taxpayer for pursuing this option and the carbon emissions implications of the concept;
• Place this concept against other alternatives (in cost to taxpayer/economy, oil use reduction levels achieved, cost per barrel of oil saved, reduction in carbon emissions, etc …);
• Engage forthrightly many issues surrounding such a plan, from security risks to the potential for it to lead to higher pollution loads.

A core challenge, which the report doesn’t successfully address, is: What sense does it make to move from one fossil-fuel addiction to another?

It is, in fact, hard to figure out where to start with this report’s problems …

Why such a stove-piped discussion?

Perhaps its greatest problem is how stove-piped the discussion is, without any serious suggestion of viable alternatives and seemingly blind acceptance of business as usual statistics. Thus, when it comes to transportation, the table on vehicles simply presents the Energy Information Administration’s and Federal Highway Administration’s figures on the number of trucks/large vehicles in 2009 and projections for 2035. What do these projections have? A significant increase in fleet numbers, working off an assumption that there is not meaningful move to (for example) smart growth and increased cargo transport on rail — both of which are the sort of policies which would drastically reduce the demand for those additional vehicles.

Or, when it comes to technology, there are many concepts and paths for improving fuel efficiency in trucking fleets that doesn’t require transition to natural gas. See, for example, the sections on trucking in the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Winning the Oil Endgame. Essentially equivalent fuel savings could occur, faster, via their paths toward improving large truck fuel efficiency. Electrification of rail offers a serious path to far greater oil demand reduction in part through offering a path to move cargo from fossil-fueled truck to electric powered trains.

In other words, our energy system and its climate impacts are incredibly complex, systems-of-systems challenges and opportunities that examining a policy option in isolation from a larger set of options almost certainly leads down faulty paths.

Why not cost analysis?

The report points to a variety of Congressional legislation for subsidizing natural gas in transportation but does not provide any cost estimates for those bills. From the report

These bills would create economic incentives to boost investments in heavy-duty vehicles powered by natural gas and the necessary refueling infrastructure. It does this by increasing and extending several key tax credits:

Alternative Fuel Tax Credit: Allows natural gas users to receive a 50-cent credit per 121 cubic feet (for CNG) or gallon (for LNG) of natural gas they purchase through at least 2019

Alternative Fueled Vehicle Tax Credits: Makes all dedicated natural gas vehicles eligible for a credit equal to 80 percent of the vehicle’s incremental cost; Makes all bi-fuel natural gas vehicles eligible for a credit equal to 50 percent of the vehicle’s incremental cost; And increases the light duty vehicle purchase tax credit by 150 percent—from $5,000 to $12,500—and doubles the vehicle purchase tax credits for all other vehicle weight classes

Alternative Minimum Tax applicability: Allows the natural gas vehicle and fueling infrastructure tax credits to count against the alternative minimum tax provisions and makes them transferable under certain conditions

Refueling Property Tax Credit: Creates an incentive to build CNG or LNG refueling facilities by increasing the refueling property tax credit from 50 percent or $50,000 per station to 50 percent or $100,000 per station.

Research and development grants: Provide grants through the Department of Energy to light- and heavy-duty engine manufacturers for research and development of better natural gas engines

How much might these cost?

The “alternative fueled vehicle tax credit” might cost in the range of $60,000 per heavy truck (based on estimated incremental $75k cost). With a target of 3.5 million, that would be $210 billion dollars dedicated to subsidizing moving from one fossil fuel use to another.

If we assume that there is reduction of 300,000 barrels/day equivalent usage in a decade (including existing natural gas fleets), that 50 cent “Alternative Fuel Tax Credit” would cost $6.3 million per day or over $2 billion per year in subsidy for burning natural gas in transportation. Again, per year …

Let’s assume 25,000 refueling facilities: that would be another $2.5 billion.

Etc …

Eventually all those $billions add up to real money …

What about analyzing the cost-benefit ratio in comparison to other policy options?

Initial analysis of The Pickens’ Plan supports a conclusion that it is not a cost effective path for reducing US oil demand (and, by the way, is simply not effective in reducing emissions) when compared to other options. A reasonable standard is:

How many dollars of Federal investment would it take for each barrel reduction in US oil demand?

While the proposal to support natural gas in transportation with (massive) federal subsidies should (could) be examined against a vast array of potential policy options from subsidizing telecommuting to mandating smart growth to alternative fuel development, let us just briefly consider three options:

1. natural gas for truck transport;
2. electrification of rail; and
3. installing dashboard feedback systems in all automobiles.

An analysis of these three resulted in the following cost per barrel reduction in daily US oil demand:

• Natural Gas for Truck Transport: $75k per barrel cut from daily oil demand + additional costs for natural gas + additional costs of refueling infrastructure + the cost of the alternative fuels’ credit + pollution impacts of drilling and natural gas burning + …
• Electrification of rail: $36k per barrel/day cut from oil use w/other benefits
• Feedback systems in cars: $10k per barrel cut from daily oil demand w/other benefits

To place these in consideration:

• Electrification of rail has the potential for reducing oil demand by some 2.5 million barrels a day by 2020, some 15 years faster than the 1.23 million barrels a day reduction that the CAP report projects for 2035. Electrification of rail would, as well, significantly cut actual carbon emissions rather than simply lead to a reduction in carbon intensity per mile driven. It would also improve safety and reduce highway infrastructure costs due to reducing, significantly, the number of truck miles on America’s highways.
• Putting feedback systems in America’s car fleet is a program that could be executed in just a few years and could contribute to a reduction in US oil demand by some 1 million barrels per day. This would also foster actual carbon emissions and would improve safety as feedback systems lead to safer driving habits. (Note: feedback systems in commercial fleets also contribute to improving fuel efficiency and vehicle safety though that benefit is not included in this figure.)

Let’s look at this a different way? What could $10 billion of Federal funding “buy” on each of these three paths?

• Natural Gas Transportation: Less than 5 years just of the Alternative Fuels Tax Credit (not the subsidies for vehicles, for refueling stations, for drilling, for …) at a level of 300,000 barrels a day equivalent.
• Electrification of Rail: Roughly 10% of the total required Federal resources to transition 35,000 of America’s rail (the key rail lines) from diesel to electric while upgrading the lines for (somewhat) faster and more efficient service of both cargo and passenger uses.
• Feedback systems in cars: Fully funding a program to put feedback systems in 100% of America’s (post-1996) light vehicle fleet and could be done in a few years resulting in somewhere between 500,000 to 1,000,000 reduction in daily US oil demand … again, by 2015 or sooner.

Very simply, the natural gas option is higher cost, lower impact in reducing oil demand, takes longer to achieve its impact, and results in higher carbon emissions than these two other options. And, again, there are many, many other options out there that also look to be lower cost and higher positive impact across multiple domains than pursuing a “clean natural gas” transportation future.

Who are they listening to?

Perhaps the study team should be credited with doing comparative cost-benefit analysis. As they write

The lifecycle costs of natural gas fueled trucks are already competitive with diesel. A California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition report found that these trucks and buses are highly competitive with their diesel counterparts, and “the relative average annual cost difference of owning, maintaining, and operating comparably equipped vehicles was found to be small over the range of expected fuel prices, vehicle technology costs and vehicle fuel economy.”

Sigh …

In fact, reasoned analysis suggests that subsidizing natural gas for transportation as a path to reduce US oil imports (and, below, reduce carbon emissions) is a far more costly and far less effective policy option than many other viable technological and social opportunities that already exist.

What are the real carbon emissions impacts of this policy construct?

Repeatedly, the report states

natural gas vehicles emit up to 25 percent less carbon dioxide pollution than their diesel or gasoline counterparts.

There are several challenging issues here.

• Methane is has 23 times the greenhouse gas (GHG) impact (in the near term) than CO2 emissions. A 1.1% leakage rate in the system for natural gas delivery into natural gas vehicles would obviate the “25 percent less” immediately. (Note that the EPA has estimated that 1.4% of natural gas transported in pipelines leaks in that delivery system.) Can that leakage be avoided? Probably but this is a serious risk. (The report includes this issue, calling for an EPA study even while endorsing moving forward with subsidizing natural gas into the transportation infrastructure.)
• While the report states concludes that transitioning heavy-duty trucks would, by 2035, lead to a 1.01 million barrels/day reduction in demand from the BAU case, the carbon load would still represent an increase from 2009’s 1.625 million barrels of oil burned to the equivalent of burning 1.981 million barrels (rather than 2.230 in the “BAU” case). In other words, the projected case still represents an over 20% increase in heavy truck carbon emissions (and the situation is worse with medium-duty trucks). While this represents a reduction in carbon/GHG intensity per truck mile (if there is not methane leakage), the United States must have significant absolute reductions in carbon emissions well before 2035 rather than simply a slowing of growth in emissions for a polluting business-as-usual baseline.

Is there such a thing as “Sustainable” fossil fuel production?

Coming from an institution that has published multiple items challenging “Fracking” (also here, here, …) as a path for natural gas production, the following sentence rings false:

Of course, there are polluting ways to go about producing shale gas and there are sustainable ways.

Simply put, “sustainable” is not a word associated with fossil fuel unless we are talking in geologic age terms, which is about the time frame to consider for sustainable production and replenishment of fossil fuel reserves. (Note: some of best, most accessible work on Fracking has come from ProPublica. See also TXSharon’s excellent work, such as Hydraulic Fracture: Your Money or Your Life)

Are there other issues?

Sadly, there are too many including the following:

• Supply and demand implications for other natural gas uses. The report simply asserts that increasing natural gas demand by a projected 12% would have no meaningful impact on the cost of natural gas for other uses from electricity production to water heating to fertilizer production. Evidently the supply/demand curves are meaningless …
• LNG’s potential risks: The report supports the creation of a large and dispersed liquid-natural gas (LNG) infrastructure around the United States, with heavy trucks having LNG tanks. LNG can be dangerous and LNG facilities are already a potential terrorist target. The security and safety risks of such a widely dispersed LNG infrastructure merited flagging and discussion.
• LNG’s energy cost: The report, again, suggest LNG use in a distributed system. To ‘produce’ LNG requires significant energy (to cool it to about negative 260 degrees F) and a significant additional infrastructure. What are the energy, fiscal, and pollution costs for that additional LNG infrastructure?
• Ignoring other technology options: The report writes-off the potential for electric or plug-in hybrid electric drive to be viable for “heavier vehicles” including buses. In fact, hybrid and electric public transit buses are already working well in actual service. Plug-In Hybrid Electric School Buses (PHESBs) are already in service in number of communities across America in a test program. (An interesting twist: what might the impact be of a PHENGSB: plug-in hybrid electric natural gas school bus?) There are even hybrid tractor trailors, with some 30 percent improved fuel efficiency. Hydraulic hybridization works well with some heavy vehicles, like trash trucks. Again, all of these options provide better oil savings per $ invested, with (significant) other benefits, than investing in subsidizing natural gas transit.

The Pickens Effect?

As per the above, this report is backing a program that would be bad for the taxpayer, bad for the nation, and bad for the climate. Putting massive amounts of public funding into supporting increasing natural gas usage in transportation would, however, be quite good for T Boone Pickens who has expended significant resources in seeking to sell it and who has been embraced by (too) many Democratic Party leaders in the past several years. It is time to look past the sales job and examine the snake-oil for what it is. It is regretful that CAP’s team failed to do such an analysis.

Tom Friedman has set out a leading position in the media landscape on the need for Green to be the new Red, White, and Blue. He has made articulate — and forceful — arguments underlying the basic national security (and economic) reasons for moving forward with an aggressive clean energy program across the United States. In his Sunday column, he takes this into the Tea Party domain. Among the tea partiers, anti-science syndrome climate denial is rampant. Friedman puts that aside in arguing that the Tea Party would be well served, and true to many of its ‘members’ underlying beliefs, if it transformed itself into the “Green Tea Party”.

“We, the Green Tea Party, believe that the most effective way to advance America’s national security and economic vitality would be to impose a $10 “Patriot Fee” on every barrel of imported oil, with all proceeds going to pay down our national debt.”

Put aside the issue of environmental considerations and the challenges of climate change, Friedman attempts to seize the nationalistic (if not isolationist / jingoist) chord within the Tea Party movement to lay out an agenda for why they should embrace a path toward cutting oil imports.

This works, imo, to a point.

Where Friedman — and this argument — fails is that cutting oil imports doesn’t necessarily have to rely on sound, sustainable paths forward. While “Drill, Baby, Drill” is a chimera in terms of serious impact on addressing America’s energy challenges, do we expect the Tea Party movement to embrace hybrids or oil platforms? Are Tea Partiers more likely to promote electrification of rail or devastation of vast parts of North America to squeeze oil for their SUVs out of tar sands and oil shale?

Friedman understands that limitation and thus asserts that a “Green Tea Party” should emerge from a radicalized center, which recognizes the health, national security, economic, environmental, and other benefits from moving forward with a clean energy future.

If we put a Patriot Fee on all of those imported barrels, we would use less, cease enriching bad regimes, strengthen our own dollar, make the air cleaner and the climate more stable, foster the exploitation of domestic and renewable energy sources, promote electric vehicles, help bring down the global price of oil (which hurts Iran and helps poor Africa), and we could use the revenue to shrink the deficit. It’s win, win, win, win, win, win …

Indeed, the Green Tea Party could say, “We’ve got our own health care plan — a plan to make America healthy by simultaneously promoting energy security, deficit security and environmental security.”

“Think about it,” said Carl Pope, the chairman of the Sierra Club. “Green tea is full of antioxidants,” which some believe help reduce cancer and heart disease. “It’s really good for your health.” And a Green Tea Party, he added, could be good for the country’s health “by harnessing all of its energy and unconventional politics” to end our addiction to oil.

Yes, I know, dream on. The Tea Party is heading to the hard libertarian right and would never support an energy bill that puts a fee on carbon.

So if there is going to be a Green Tea Party, it will have to emerge from a different place — the radical center, a center committed to a radical departure from business as usual.

Mistakenly, Friedman links the (semi-)suspended Kerry-Graham-Lieberman to this radical shift, “a radical departure from business as usual.” Everything leaked to date suggests otherwise, that the compromising after compromising after compromising looks to create the fig leaf of change while lining the pockets of the nation’s serial polluters. (While it would be great to be surprised that this is not the case, the indications are not positive …)

Friedman is right. There are so many wins to be seized with a clean energy future … understanding the extent of opportunities before us suggests that we face a problem like Goldman Sachs cheering the failures of the housing market: what are the financial and political interests secretly cheering their short-term gains as they help drive the nation (and the planet) into catastrophic climate chaos?

The Geological Society of America (GSA) has revised its 2006 statement on climate change. The GSA’s position statement on climate change is as follows:

Decades of scientific research have shown that climate can change from both natural and anthropogenic causes. The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse?gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s. If current trends continue, the projected increase in global temperature by the end of the twentyfirst century will result in large impacts on humans and other species. Addressing the challenges posed by climate change will require a combination of adaptation to the changes that are likely to occur and global reductions of CO2 emissions from anthropogenic sources.

The overall “position statement (1) summarizes the strengthened basis for the conclusion that humans are a major factor responsible for recent global warming; (2) describes the large effects on humans and ecosystems if greenhouse?gas concentrations and global climate reach projected levels; and (3) provides information for policy decisions guiding mitigation and adaptation strategies designed to address the future impacts of anthropogenic warming.”

For some reason, it seems doubtful that too many of us will see this on the front page of our local newspapers.

The GSA makes a strong statement about scientific advances in terms of understanding climate change:

Scientific advances in the first decade of the 21st century have greatly reduced previous uncertainties about the amplitude and causes of recent global warming.

The position paper makes clear that natural causes cannot explain the warming that we see:

Given the knowledge gained from paleoclimatic studies, several long-term causes of the current warming trend can be eliminated. Changes in Earth’s tectonism and its orbit are far too slow to have played a significant role in a rapidly changing 150-year trend. At the other extreme, large volcanic eruptions have cooled global climate for a year or two, and El Niño episodes have warmed it for about a year, but neither factor dominates longer-term trends.

As a result, greenhouse gas concentrations, which can be influenced by human activities, and solar fluctuations are the principal remaining factors that could have changed rapidly enough and lasted long enough to explain the observed changes in global temperature. …. changes in solar irradiance, continuously measured by satellites since 1979, account for less than 10% of the last 150 years of warming.

Greenhouse gases remain as the major explanation.

And, humanity is the culprit behind growing GHG levels in the atmosphere.

The GSA has two sets of recommendations: for public policy and for its membership.

• Public policy should include effective strategies for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. …
• Comprehensive local, state, national and international planning is needed to address challenges posed by future climate change.
• Public investment is needed to improve our understanding of how climate change affects society,…. Sustained support of climate-related research … is needed.

More importantly, the Geological Society of America is recommending that its membership become active participants in discussion of climate change debate.

Actively participate in professional education and discussion activities to be technically informed about the latest advances in climate science. GSA should encourage symposia at regional, national and international meetings to inform members on mainstream understanding among geoscientists and climate scientists of the causes and future effects of global warming within the broader context of natural variability. These symposia should seek to actively engage members in hosted discussions that clarify issues, possibly utilizing educational formats other than the traditional presentation and Q&A session.

• Engage in public education activities in the community, including the local level. Public education is a critical element of a proactive response to the challenges presented by global climate change. GSA members are encouraged to take an active part in outreach activities to educate the public at all levels (local, regional, national, and international) about the science of global warming and the importance of geological research in framing policy development. Such activities can include organizing and participating in community school activities; leading discussion groups in civic organizations; meeting with local and state community leaders and congressional staffs; participating in GSA’s Congressional Visits Day; writing opinion pieces and letters to the editor for local and regional newspapers; contributing to online forums; and volunteering for organizations that support efforts to mitigate and adapt to global climate change.
• Collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders and help educate and inform them about the causes and impacts of global climate change from the geosciences perspective. GSA members are encouraged to discuss with businesses and policy makers the science of global warming, as well as opportunities for transitioning from our predominant dependence on fossil fuels to greater use of low-carbon energies and energy efficiencies.
• Work interactively with other science and policy societies to help inform the public and ensure that policymakers have access to scientifically reliable information. GSA should actively engage and collaborate with other earth-science organizations in recommending and formulating national and international strategies to address impending impacts of anthropogenic climate change.

In the face of heightened attacks on climate scientists, this is a strong statement calling on their membership to engage — forcefully — in the public discussion of climate change issues.

Hat-tip to Michael Tobbs who is Only In It for the Gold.

Courtesy of Enviroknow, some resources re the coming Kerry-Graham-Lieberman “climate” (???) legislation:

— It is expected to be dropped this coming Monday, aka Offshore Drilling Day.

— The rollout next week apparently won’t actually include the introduction of the bill.  It will be handed over to Senator Reid so he can bring it directly to the floor if/when he gets the votes, bypassing the committee process.  Republicans will undoubtedly throw a fit over this, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if Max Baucus joins them.

— A week ago today POTUS called the bill “one of these foundational priorities that needs to be done soon.”  But there is currently some confusion over whether the Senate will take up climate or immigration first.  After FinReg there probably won’t be time to do both.

— There are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic about the bill’s chances:

• A coalition of midwestern Democrats want state laws to be pre-empted as part of the deal, but Senator Boxer is opposed to the idea.
• Senators Landrieu, Graham, Webb, Warner and others want coastal states to receive some of the revenues from expanded offshore drilling, but Senators Dorgan, Rockefeller and Bingaman are strongly opposed to the idea.
• Senator Menendez is openly threatening to vote against the bill due to the expansion of offshore drilling.
• Senator Sanders has a host of other concerns, including state pre-emption and undue support for the nuclear power and coal industries, among others.
• It remains to be seen whether any Senators will draw a line in the sand over the issue, but several grassroots environmental organizations are prepared to pull their support if the legislation takes away the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

— The environmentalist base is not at all pleased with how Senator Kerry appears to be handling some of the contentious provisions, particularly pre-emption of the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

— An outline of the bill that was leaked about a month ago showed that it was relatively close to Obama’s campaign proposals, although some details have changed since then and details are still very fluid.

— Kate Sheppard outlined some of the latest details last night:

• The bill would remove the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act, and the states’ authority to set tougher emissions standards than the federal government.
• There will be no fee—or “gas tax”—on transportation fuels. Instead, oil companies would also be required to obtain pollution permits but will not trade them on the market like other polluters. How this would work is not yet clear.
• Agriculture would be entirely exempt from the cap on carbon emissions.
• Manufacturers would not be included under a cap on greenhouse gases until 2016.
• The bill would provide government-backed loan guarantees for the construction of 12 new nuclear power plants.
• It will contain at least $10 billion to develop technologies to capture and store emissions from coal-fired power plants.
• There will be new financial incentives for natural gas.
• The bill would place an upper and lower limit on the price of pollution permits, known as a hard price collar. Businesses like this idea because it ensures a stable price on carbon. Environmental advocates don’t like the idea because if the ceiling is set too low, industry will have no financial incentive to move to cleaner forms of energy.
• The energy bill passed by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee last year will be adopted in full. This measure has sparked concerns among environmentalists for its handouts to nuclear and fossil fuel interests.

— Senators Voinovich and Lugar, two Republicans who have been considered potential pickups on this, floated a ‘half-assed’ energy-only bill as an alternative earlier this week.