Get Energy Smart! NOW!

Friday, the Center for Climate Strategies released a study showing that making national policy of 23 measures already in play in Red and Blue and Purple states across the nation would lead to millions of additional jobs and significant carbon reductions.

This study shows, quite clearly, that serious climate mitigation efforts should not be discussed as “cost”, but as “investment” that will lead to significant benefits.

Two notable items about this study:

1. The strongly supported conclusion that the more aggressive the action, the greater the economic benefits.

2. This is a conservative study

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Today is Earth Day.

The 40th Earth Day.

And, I’m feeling old, thinking back to that first Earth Day back in 1970.

Composted then. Ditto today.

Turned lights off when not required back then. Ditto today.

Contacted politicians advocating the benefits of a clean energy future in 1970. Ditto today.

Those dittos aren’t isolated to one day per year, less than 0.3% of the past 40 years, but are actually evolving life habits.

While far (FAR) from a sustainable role model, living at a sustainable level, the past 40 years have been a voyage of embedding smarter habits into life, seeking to be better today than yesterday. And, I will strive to be better today than yesterday … which makes Earth Day a day like any other.

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The pushing to the Overton Window to the right, ever to the right, over the past few decades have made many topics seemingly near taboo in ‘polite company’. Zero Population Growth seemingly was part of the common lexicon decades ago, with serious concern about The Population Bomb part of the general cultural conversation space. As we face every more serious pressures on the global ecosystem, not least of which is climate change, ZPG seems unlikely to ring bells with most Americans in 2010. And, sadly, we still spend orders of magnitude more on fertility research then on contraceptives. We spend how much more on cosmetics as on family planning. And, yet, when it comes to our long term solutions getting a handle on population and, in fact, turning back from the 9 billion or so humans that could be on the planet in 2040 is critical.

The Center for Biological Diversity evidently looked to the relative obscurity in which population issues seem to reside, and has chosen to try to shine some light on the issue via Endangered Species Condoms.

The earth’s population has nearly doubled since the original Earth Day in 1970. In those days, it was well understood that human overpopulation was causing the many environmental challenges cropping up around the world. Today, on the 40th anniversary of the original Earth Day, unsustainable human population growth is too often ignored, even though it continues to drive all the major environmental problems that plague our planet.

At 6.8 billion people, the human race is not only the most populous large mammal on Earth but the most populous large mammal that has ever existed. Providing for the needs and wants of this many people — especially those in high-consumption, first-world nations — has pushed homo sapiens to absorb 50 percent of the planet’s freshwater and develop 50 percent of its landmass. As a result, other species are running out of places to live.

By our actions — including our decisions about when (major difference between becoming a parent at age 16 and age 36 in terms of population growth) to have children and how many — we affect all around us. And, when we’re talking 6.8 billion and growing, well that cumulative impact becomes oppressive.

If the planet is headed for another mass extinction like the previous five, each of which wiped out more than 75 percent of all species on the planet, then North American mammals are one-fifth to one-half the way there … the perfect storm of global warming and environmental degradation — both the result of human activity is leading to a sixth mass extinction equal to the “Big Five” that have occurred over the past 450 million years, the last of which killed off the dinosaurs 68 million years ago.

As the CBD summarizes, “Human overpopulation is the driving force behind the current mass-extinction crisis, endangering:

• 12 percent of mammals
• 12 percent of birds
• 31 percent of reptiles
• 30 percent of amphibians
• 37 percent of fish”

As CBD notes, “wrap with care, save a polar bear”.

Just published, Joe Romm’s Straight Up excerpts from Romm’s fiery and highly-informed posts at Climate Progress, which has developed into one of, if not the, top climate / energy blog on the web. As someone who often reads Romm’s blogging and has read his previous books, I was uncertain whether I would welcome having this book in my hands.  Reading the first chapter erased that uncertainty.

Romm opens the book with a discussion of “why I blog”, working from the George Orwell essay of “Why I Write“. After quoting Orwell, Romm begins:

I joined the new media because the old media have failed us.  They have utterly failed to force us to face unpleasant facts.

Yes, the “old” / traditional (not “mainstream”) media have failed us. They have failed us when it comes to economic matters. They have failed us when it comes to reporting on politics. And, they have utterly failed us when it comes to honest and forthright reporting on the challenges before us due to Global Warming and the opportunities that are ready to be grasped if only the societal will were there to seize the day … Carpe Diem.  As Howard Friel wrote about traditional media’s embrace of Bjorn Lomborg’s deceit on climate change issues:

the favorable coverage of Lomborg and his books are to global warming what the triple-A ratings for mortgage-backed securities were to the U.S. financial system — misguided seals of approval with catastrophic conclusions. Even worse, financial systems and economies presumably can be reinvented and restored, but the Earth, its climate, and its environment–upon which economic well-being and human civilization ultimately depend–cannot. Lomborg’s success largely reflects an ability of elite publishing houses and news organizations to construct an alternative  but counterfeit network of knowledge about an issue of the highest public importance.

Romm’s forceful, impassioned blogging — and his book publishing — are a shining light in the confrontation of those “misguided seals of approval”.

Romm’s opening essay is his and speaks to his transition from scientist and policy making wonk (having served as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in the Clinton Administration) to prolific blogger, but there is much truth there for many others who have launched themselves into the blogosphere, striving to find paths to communicate successfully about the seriousness of the risks that we face.

Despite the dreadful seriousness and dire likely consequences of the subject matter, Romm’s writing is enthused with a thread of hope. As he concludes that opening essay,

The ultimate reason that I blog is because it’s not too late. JUst because the catastrophic climate changes we are headed toward will probably  be irreversible for hundreds of years or longer, that doesn’t mean that they are unstoppable.

We are going to adopte the clean energy strategies described in this book. That is a certainty. But the question of our time is: will we do it fast enough?

Humanity has only two paths forward at this point. As President Obama said in April 2009, “The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy. The choice we face is between prosperity and decline.”

Either we voluntarily switch to a low-carbon, low-oil, low-net-water use, low-net-material economy over the next two decades or the post-Ponzi-zcheme collapse will force us to do so circa 2030. The only difference between the two paths is that the first one spares our children and grandchildren and future generations untold misery an expense.

With that pained optimism, Romm speaks for me and many that I know. He, I, we understand that we face a dire situation. That, even in the best scenarios, the situation will worsen (significantly) before improving due to the ‘cooked’ books of extent CO2 and the huge polluting infrastructure (and culture) that already exists.  He, I, we understand that facing that challenge — directly, seriously, continuously — also represents a path not just to avert utter disaster but to forge something better for tomorrow.

Romm is a tenacious fighter, ready to speak what he sees as truth bluntly and forcefully, ready to take on all comers to the point that he can even rub ‘friends’ and allies the wrong way at times. That tenaciousness seems absent from the traditional media — especially for reality-based traditional media. Romm’s knowledge, writing skills, and passion enable most to see past those conflicts since, on so many issues, Romm is simply — well — correct and laying out viable paths forward.   As Christopher Mims opened his review at Change.ORG

If you want to be culturally literate about climate change, there are two books that you must read. The first is Mark Lynas’s Six Degrees. The other, which just hit the stands yesterday, is Straight Up, the second book by Joe Romm, who was Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy during the Clinton Administration. It represents the best of his blog Climate Progress, lightly edited and presented so accessibly that even veterans of that site will find it informative. No one in the public eye understands climate change, its solutions and its detractors better than Romm.

Simply put, if the ‘nation’ would read Straight Up and follow Romm’s prescriptions, we would find ourselves moving away from decline into a new era of prosperity.

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Rewarding those who come up with innovative approaches, who prove that they have winning teams, who can show demonstrated success is a thematic within the Obama Administration. Of course, this is not ‘abandon those who fail’ and thus the more appropriate summary might be: “Reward those who show success, help those who struggle reform toward success.”

The Department of Education’s Race to the Top is a poster child for that approach:

Awards in Race to the Top will go to States that are leading the way with ambitious yet achievable plans for implementing coherent, compelling, and comprehensive education reform. Race to the Top winners will help trail-blaze effective reforms and provide examples for States and local school districts throughout the country to follow as they too are hard at work on reforms that can transform our schools for decades to come.

Let’s help institutions develop solution paths and then figure out how to propagate those that work elsewhere.

Whether this is in figuring out the most effective paths for energy efficiency, transportation planning, prison reform, education, or elsewhere, this is a laudable path to follow.

When it comes to “ambitious … education reform”, however, might the Department of Education be missing what might be the most cost-effective and fastest path toward improving American school performance?

Here is the program’s stated focus:

Through Race to the Top, we are asking States to advance reforms around four specific areas:

• Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and to compete in the global economy;
• Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction;
• Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and
• Turning around our lowest-achieving schools.

Where, if at all, does Greening the Schools fit into the equation? It is hard to see where even though, quite simply, greening schools is the most cost effective path (even cost cutting path) toward improving educational performance even while achieving many other worthwhile goals.  In short, taking aggressive greening the school house is about one of the smartest steps the nation can take, action that should go beyond bipartisanship to true unity of action as it is a win-win-win-win strategy along so many paths:

This Administration has a substantial focus on the importance of a clean-energy future, along with the more general importance of fostering a stronger foundation across the board for a more resilient and prosperous society for the generations to come. Improving and strengthening the educational process — at all levels, for all students — is a substantive part of this. The Administration (Secretary of Education Duncan) would well serve the nation by recognizing how closely linked fostering that clean-energy economy can and should be with improving educational performance.

As The Race to the Top moves forward into future rounds of submissions and funding, the nation would be well served if at least one of the funded “states leading the way with ambitious yet achievable plans for implementing coherent, compelling, and comprehensive education reform” would have greening their schools as a centerpiece of their path forward. Is “Greening the Schools” the only path toward improving educational performance or should it be? Absolutely not. On the other hand, Greening the School House certainly should be part of a comprehensive, nation-wide effort to achieve that improved educational performance.

Related posts:

• Clean Energy Jobs Go to School: A proposal for $50 billion / year for greening America’s public schools
• Greening the School House discussing legislation that passed the US House of Representatives in 2008, with a discussion of the range of benefits from greening schools.
• Keeping students awake … and more productive discussing the implications of a LEED-certified high school. “energy savings are not even the tip of the iceberg in real benefits, in measurable impact from “going green”.  Study-after-study of green buildings has found that there is improved worker productivity, reduced absenteeism, and improved retention (reduced turnover)  which directly impacts the bottom line (helping companies make green by going Green).  In addition, related to these is that workers have fewer health problems — working in a healthy space turns out to, surprise surprise, contribute to one’s health.”

Some green schools resources:

• Growing Greener Schools (with a PBS show this coming Sunday, 25 April)
• Green School Buildings, US Green Building Council “Green schools cost less to operate, freeing up resources to truly improve students’ education. Their carefully planned acoustics and abundant daylight make it easier and more comfortable for students to learn. Their clean indoor air cuts down sick days and gives our children a head start for a healthy, prosperous future. And their innovative design provides a wealth of hands-on learning opportunities.”
• Green Schools.NET
• Alliance to Save Energy Green Schools Program
• Project Green Schools (New England focused) (Note that there are many state/regional sites & groups. See, for example, Michigan Green Schools.)
• Green Schools Alliance
• National Wildlife Federation Eco-Schools

The day before the 40th Earth Day, VP Joe Biden kicked off a series of White House actions and announcements with an excellent initiative:

selection of 25 communities for up to $452 million in Recovery Act funding to “ramp-up” energy efficiency building retrofits. Under the Department of Energy’s Retrofit Ramp-Up initiative, communities, governments, private sector companies and non-profit organizations will work together on pioneering and innovative programs for concentrated and broad-based retrofits of neighborhoods and towns – and eventually entire states. These partnerships will support large-scale retrofits and make energy efficiency accessible to hundreds of thousands of homeowners and businesses. The models created through this program are expected to save households and businesses about a $100 million annually in utility bills, while leveraging private sector resources, to create what funding recipients estimate at about 30,000 jobs across the country during the next three years.

This is, truly, a terrific announcement: the movement of real funding into paths for ramping up energy efficiency building retrofitting capacities and actions. For that $452 million investment, there looks to be the likelihood of over 20% annual return on investment at a borrowed money cost of roughly 5% (or less), that provides a real profit potential for the taxpayer. And, this program will create some 30,000 jobs (or 90,000 job years).

“For forty years, Earth Day has focused on transforming the way we use energy and reducing our dependence on fossil fuel – but this year, because of the historic clean energy investments in the Recovery Act, we’re poised to make greater strides than ever in building a nationwide clean energy economy,” said Vice President Biden. “This investment in some of the most innovative energy-efficiency projects across the country will not only help homeowners and businesses make cost-cutting retrofit improvements, but also create jobs right here in America.”

“This initiative will help overcome the barriers to making energy efficiency easy and accessible to all – inconvenience, lack of information, and lack of financing,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “Block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, we will make our communities more energy efficient and help families save money. At the same time, we’ll create thousands of jobs and strengthen our economy.”

Building energy efficiency is one of the greatest win-win-win options for the nation right now: job creation in some of the hardest hit industries (building trades), opportunities for every single community in the nation, very high fiscal payback opportunities, and a real bang for the buck in reducing the nation’s carbon footprint.

The biggest problem with this announcement is simple: 25 communities with, roughly, $150 million per year. As an example of the problem,

Overall, the program funding was eight times oversubscribed, with more than $3.5 billion in applications received for the just over $450 million in Recovery Act funds available, indicating significant demand for investment in energy-saving and job-creating projects like these nationwide.

This type of program shouldn’t be in 25 communities, but in 2500+. The annual investment shouldn’t be $150 million, but easily $15+ billion (actually, multiples even of that figure).

Let’s be clear, this $452 million is far from the only money that the Federal government is putting toward local community building efficiency. Even so, the total national investment falls far short of the massive opportunities for economic stimulus, strengthening of state & local financial situations, and a leap forward in reducing US GHG emissions that a serious program could foster.

It is past time for a massive Federal bond support program to help state and local governments move out aggressively with energy efficiency efforts. It is past time for a Federal program to buy down mortgage loans on the basis of energy efficiency. The $100s of billions in energy savings and 10s of millions of jobs that an aggressive embrace of such a path would foster are sitting there waiting to be harvested.

Again, cheers for the Obama Administration’s efforts and this announcement.

Let us hope that an announcement of a truly robust program will come before the 80th Earth Day … or, more importantly, before the 41st.

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At a recent conference, a scientist made a comment during his presentation about how we need to understand trade-offs in investments, advocating action on climate change but noting that we need to understand opportunity costs. In doing this, he referenced Bjorn Lomborg  (with a somewhat condescending tone). In my bag, as he spoke, Howard Friel’s devastating dissection of The Lomborg Deception.  Afterwards, I went to bring Friel’s work to that scientist’s attention and the conversation turn to: who is more dangerous for the planet’s future, George Will or Bjorn Lomborg.  He asserted Will, due to the reach of his deceitful columns.  I countered Lomborg, because he created a facade of pseudo-environmentalism, fostering confusion among those who we would expect to care deeply about our looming environmental catastrophe.  After all, when it comes to Lomborg,

• The Guardian named him “one of the 50 people who could save the planet” in 2008
• Foreign Policy listed him 14th on its list of “the top 100 public intellectuals.”
• Esquire named him as one of the world’s 75 most influential people of the 21st century in 2008
• Foreign Policy and Prospect named him as one of the top 100 public intellectuals
• Time magazine named him as one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2004

Multiple TED Talks, interviews on Colbert Nation and on  NPR, and, sadly, so on …

Let’s move on to another scientist who is a most brilliant scientist, able to speak from the grandest theories of astrophysics to detailed biology of algae, working near 24/7 to convince people of the climate challenges we face and working to help create a serious Silver BB in the struggle for a sustainable future. This other scientist was in Copenhagen for the climate talks. He bumped into Lomborg there, not knowing anything about him prior to that meeting. This impassioned climate warrior found Lomborg reasonable with important points to consider about the need to think about trade-offs and opportunity costs when investing to mitigate climate change.  He had no clue of Lomborg’s serial deception.

In contrast, what knowledgeable person takes George Will’s opinions on climate change seriously?

The brief overview

Bjorn Lomborg could be described as the articulate, charming, smiling Dane fancied by the global warming denial and skeptic crowd.  He claims to be a reformed environmentalist, arguing that there is little reason to be so fearful of global warming, and that economic analysis leads to the conclusion that focusing on climate-change mitigation (reducing carbon emissions) is a mistaken investment.  His two books, The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It were best sellers and, as per above, he has an easy time ‘making the media circuit’.

In essence, Lomborg argues that “environmentalists” are exaggerating the threat of climate change, ignoring the ways in which the environment is getting better, and asserting that we have better ways to spend our resources today than on efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

When pulling back the covers, Lomborg’s work almost always seems to have twists and games that fall into the ‘lies, damned lies, and statistics’ category. For example, in an oped attacking UK climate-mitigation efforts, Lomborg costs out the carbon-reduction benefits of planned wind investments by 2030. He talks, however, solely of carbon reductions by 2030 (even while asserting that he is discussing “cumulative emissions reductions”) not, of course, mentioning that at least half the carbon-reduction benefits from those investments would come post 2030.

Lomborg is seriously deceptive …

Even more deceptive than I had realized … and I was already aware that Lomborg (politely) selectively quoted and was creative in citations — having footnotes that led nowhere near the point he claimed they supported. There have been scientific reviews (and rebukes) of Lomborg, fora in multiple arenas highlighting his deceptions, articles, letters, blog posts, and otherwise making clear that Lomborg was a serial deceiver. Friel has taken this to a, sadly necessary, next level with a detailed examination of Lomborg’s footnoting.

One path of Lomborg’s deception is through massive citations. After all, Lomborg’s Skeptical Environmentalist has almost 3000 endnotes. That number, that quantity, is a rather damning point seemingly hammering the last nail in the coffin to prove Lomborg right. With so many citations, he must be right?   No?  That, of course, is the common assumption. The reader assumes that the author is (at least somewhat) honestly citing work that backs up his comments, that going to those notes will provide the reader additional information — but won’t contradict the point the author makes.  And, even more fundamentally, that the footnote will actually lead to something relevant to the sentence (or paragraph) the note is attached to.  Well, in case after case after …, this is simply not the case with Lomborg’s citations as Friel lays clear.

Page after page, citation after citation, Friel’s forensic work finds situations where cited material doesn’t seem to exist, the cited documents don’t have material relevant to Lomborg’s point, and — all too frequently — the cited material actually contradicts Lomborg’s point.

Not just deceitful …

Well, not only does Lomborg’s scholarship go beyond shoddy into outright deceitful, Lomborg’s conclusions and assertions are simply wrong.

Many … studies published after Cool It confirm that Lomborg was wrong on virtually every major claim that he made about supposed exaggerated threats of global warming.

Whether it was threats to polar bears, glacier melting, warming in Antarctica, or otherwise — scientific work shows that Lomborg isn’t just deceitful, but is simply wrong.

Friel’s damning conclusion:

the favorable coverage of Lomborg and his books are to global warming what the triple-A ratings for mortgage-backed securities were to the U.S. financial system — misguided seals of approval with catastrophic conclusions. Even worse, financial systems and economies presumably can be reinvented and restored, but the Earth, its climate, and its environment–upon which economic well-being and human civilization ultimately depend–cannot. Lomborg’s success largely reflects an ability of elite publishing houses and news organizations to construct an alternative  but counterfeit network of knowledge about an issue of the highest public importance.

Book doesn’t end Friel’s travails …

Not surprisingly, Friel’s work led Lomborg to issue a truthiness-laden (failed) effort to rebut Friel. In his devastating 20-page response, Friel notes several of his own errors but finishes, appropriately, that one-paragraph discussion as follows:

What we’re talking about here are mistakes; however, my book about Lomborg’s scholarship is not about mistakes but rather a persistent pattern of misrepresenting his footnoted sources.

Returning to the opening …

This review opens with mention of George Will and Bjorn Lomborg with a question in the title “Does The Washington Post have any honor left?” In addition to its continued publication of George Will’s dangerously deceitful prose, The Post has published praising reviews of Lomborg’s books and given him prominent placement in Post editorial pages (including above-the-fold, front-page Sunday Outlook opinion section pieces).  As with Will, The Post has published follow-up letters to Lomborg that provided at least a hint of the absurdities of what they are publishing yet, repeatedly, they choose to publish them again.

The Post‘s editorial board, however, should take on the task of actually reading Friel’s work — perhaps even just looking at the cases where Lomborg’s deceitful practices extend to misrepresenting Washington Post reporting. Pages 38-39, in a discussion of polar bears, is an excellent example. In Cool It, Lomborg cites Juliet Eilperin’s 2004 narticle Study Says Polar Bears Could Face Extinction for the following comment

We are being told that the plight of the polar bears shows “the need for stricter curbs on greenhouse-gas emissions linked to global warming.”

Lomborg then continues with a paragraph that is utterly misleading (and, in several cases, simply false) arguing that polar bears aren’t under threat. Yet, how did Eilperin’s article begin?

Global warming could cause polar bears to go extinct by the end of the century by eroding the sea ice that sustains them, according to the most comprehensive international assessment ever done of Arctic climate change.

The thinning of sea ice — which is projected to shrink by at least half by the end of the century and could disappear altogether, according to some computer models — could determine the fate of many other key Arctic species, said the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the product of four years of work by more than 300 scientists.

This detailed and high-quality (not unusual for Eilperin) article has much substance about why polar bears are threatened, such as:

The sea ice in Hudson Bay, Canada, now breaks up 2 1/2 weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago, said Canadian Wildlife Service research scientist Ian Stirling, and as a result female polar bears there weigh 55 pounds less than they did then. Assuming the current rate of ice shrinkage and accompanying weight loss in the Hudson Bay region, bears there could become so thin by 2012 they may no longer be able to reproduce

This, however, is an article that Lomborg cites (misrepresents) as part of his truthiness-laden falsehoods about the science of Global Warming.

The Washington Post has given over valuable oped space to Lomborg multiple times in the past decade. In each and every case, Lomborg’s glib work has twisted truths and fostered misunderstanding. If The Post‘s editorial board has any honor left, it should end that practice. And, to remove some of the stain it brought on itself through giving prominence to the Lomborg deception, The Post should consider commissioning an oped from Howard Friel to bring light to The Washington Post‘s readers about The Lomborg Deception.

The larger challenge

Too often, it is easier to be a deceiver trying to confuse people about not just climate change, but other issues, than to remain reality-based, especially in the absence of ‘fact checkers’ or a fact-checking approach that includes actually looking at where endnotes lead.  And, once the deception has caught hold, the factual rebuke has a hard time breaking through the ‘meme’ the deceiver(s) created. When it comes to climate change, we see this with the truthiness-laden ‘climate-change is natural’ (of course it is, the question is how much is humanity putting its thumb on the scale to make natural unnatural), the statistical falsehoods related to ‘hasn’t warmed since 1998’, and outright falsehoods misrepresenting cited works. All of these (and other deceptions) are throughout Lomborg’s work and, well, George Will’s as well — and in their Washington Post publications.

Again, however, the problem of a “counterfeit network of knowledge” isn’t limited to climate change and the difficulty, for example, of breaking through the noise to educate people that every serious review of “Climate Gate” is backing up the embattled scientists and not showing some form of criminal conspiracy. For example, ACORN was essentially destroyed through a rapid dissemination and spinning of what has turned out to be false videos. Americans are aware of ClimateGate (and supposed problems with climate science) and supposed ACORN fraud (the falsehoods about giving advice to pimps), not the context and facts that make clear those issues are incredibly overblown — and, in fact, actually manipulated falsehoods to a large extent. Giving prominence to truthful discussions, that set the record straight, should be on the top of the agenda for any media outlet that seeks to hold its head high with any allegiance to journalistic ethics.

For two excellent reviews of The Lomborg Deception, see:

Sharon Begley, Debunking the claims of the climate-change skeptic, Newsweek

I don’t want to be as trusting as the reviewers who praised Lomborg’s scholarship without (it seems) bothering to check his references, so rather than taking Friel at his word just as they took Lomborg at his, I’ve done my best to do that checking. Although Friel engages in some bothersome overkill, overall his analysis is compelling.

Byron Walker, Celsias

Is it worth spending a whole book dissecting the writing of Bjørn Lomborg, the “skeptical environmentalist”? Certainly not in terms of the quality of Lomborg’s argument, which simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. But Lomborg’s writing has been permitted to exercise a widespread and harmful influence. For that reason Howard Friel’s painstaking book The Lomborg Deception: Setting the Record Straight About Global Warming represents time well and usefully spent. …

Friel provides a telling analogy: “…the favourable coverage of Lomborg and his books are to global warming what the triple-A ratings for mortgage-backed securities were to the US financial system – misguided seals of approval with catastrophic consequences.” More catastrophic, he notes, in the case of climate change than in the case of financial systems which can presumably be repaired. His verdict on the part played by publishers and journalists: “Lomborg’s success largely reflects an ability of elite publishing houses and news organizations to contruct an alternative but counterfeit network of knowledge about an issue of the highest public importance.”

Joe Romm, Climate Progress

Another op-ed by Bjorn Lomborg, another Gish Gallup of non-stop disinformation.  The good news is that the task of debunking the Septical Environmentalist (sic), has been made easier by the publication of whole book dedicated to that tedious task, The Lomborg Deception.

“Septical Environmentalist” is not a typo.  Sure, it may seem like a mistake to use the word “environmentalist” to describe Lomborg.  But it’s the very fact that he calls himself an environmentalist while dedicating his life to spreading disinformation and delaying serious action on the seminal environmental issue of our time that makes him septical.  What else would you call the Typhoid Mary of anti-science syndrome (ASS)?

And, for fun: Lomborg Errors Site. Or, these excellent Solve Climate discussions and the Grist list and WRI’s nine things journalists should know and …

A few ‘admin’ like remarks

Friel has done a real service with The Lomborg Deception yet …

• First off, there are few who will find this an easy cover-to-cover read, in part because Friel is diligent. This is an extensively documented work, with many long extracts from articles and otherwise to bring clarity to how Lomborg misrepresented a specific work or misled readers with a comment.  He isn’t covering all of Lomborg’s deceptions, yet this is an over 200 page book with 43 pages of endnotes.  Writ large, it is easier for glib deceivers to create an entertaining best seller than for the fact checker to write something that will get a fraction of the attention …
• Endnotes are, fundamentally, more difficult for a reader than footnotes.  In a work that is dissecting another’s deceit via creating false trails via endnotes, footnotes would have helped underline Lomborg’s fundamental deceptions. [Note: this is not Friel’s doing, almost certainly, but a general failure, imo, of the publishing world.]
• Friel’s notes have at least a few problems . For example, on page 6-7 he discusses the (sadly) favorable  Washington Post review of Lomborg’s Skeptical Environmentalist and brands it as “in its review” without in the text or notes identifying the actual review author. (Note: this is almost certainly a publishing house issue, as endnotes about articles from newspapers do not have the authors identified.) In this case the review author is identified as follows: “Denis Dutton is a professor of philosophy who lectures on the dangers of pseudoscience at the science faculties of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He is also editor of the website Arts & Letters Daily.”  Dutton also doted on Lomborg, with multiple published reviews, and is more accurately described as a “libertarian media commentator/activist”.  While The Washington Post deserves a rebuke for turning its pages over to such an activist without identifying his agenda and bias to readers, this was a signed book review — not a Post editorial.

As we’ve seen science and environmental reporting decay (both in resources and quality) across most of the mainstream media, the online world has become ever more important in enabling the sharing of reality-based information in these domains. From Climate Progress to Real Climate to Solve Climate to …, online resources have been crucial for anyone seeking honest and robust discussion of climate and energy issues.

While the web contains a growing number of high-quality sites in these domains, this morass can be difficult to navigate — especially for those with limited resources (time and energy) to try to track down good information.

Today, a coalition of journalistic outlets stepped in the breach. Climate Desk represents an effort by

seven of America’s most innovative news organizations—The Atlantic, the Center for Investigative Reporting, Grist, Mother Jones, Slate, Wired, and the new PBS current affairs show Need to Know—have launched the Climate Desk, a collaboration dedicated to exploring the impact—human, environmental, economic, political—of a changing climate.

This group marries web-based, print, and broadcast media outlets who will collaborate on stories and help bring visibility to each others’ work.

Within the seemingly ever-more limited resources to support journalism, Climate Desk might enable more robust climate change reporting due to burden and communication sharing between these outlets.

If things work right, perhaps Climate Desk will win a Pulitzer like another innovative journalism endeavor: Pro Publica.

“The Social Cost of Carbon may be the most important number you’ve never heard of” according to Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth Stanton in a recent publication from the Economics for Equity and the Environment Network.

The Social Cost of Carbon (pdf) analyzes the efforts within the U.S. government to develop a value of the economic impact of CO2 emissions to use in everything from regulation writing to discussions as to carbon legislation. Set the price too high and the economy could take a near-term hit in terms of lost opportunity costs for more sensible investment choices. Set the price too low and, well, the devastating impacts of catastrophic climate chaos could result as the economy under invests in climate mitigation and adaptation. Right now the costs for polluting CO2 is roughly, well exactly: $0 per ton. Watching glaciers melt, species go extinct, and allergy sufferers suffer more clearly shows that figure is too low.

Ackerman and Stanton provide a strikingly searing look at how the work, to date, of the interagency working group has relied on questionable analyses that systematically understate the costs that CO2 emissions cause and will create. The United Kingdom’s latest calculation is that the Social Cost of Carbon is in the range of $41-$124 per ton, with a central case of $83. The US interagency group’s conclusion: a central price of $21. Why might the U.S. figure be a quarter of the UK figure?

Biased research as a starting point: A key supporting document is a self-proclaimed comprehensive review of published research by Richard Tol. This examination looks to 211 SCC estimates which seems an overwhelming number on face value. In fact, more than half (112) were from the review’s author and those weren’t separate analyses but the scenarios/sensitivity analyses to his own studies. “Every version of William Nordhaus’ DICE model is included, despite the fact that the newer versions were created to update and replace the older versions.” Both Tol’s and Nordhaus’ work is biased toward a lower SCC definition. Others’ work wasn’t treated the same, expansive, way. “For example, the Stern Review, which included multiple scenarios and sensitivity analyses, is treated as only generating a single estimate of the SCC in Tol’s meta-analysis.”

Peer Review: “Peer Review” is a serious gate-keeper in the scientific community but sometimes it blocks the gates to valuable work. Not only does the drive a backward looking definition but it can exclude material that went through equivalent (or better) review. The Stern Review’s analysis calculated a 85 per ton SCC for CO2. It was, however, not “peer reviewed” even though it seen a “level of professional review and detailed scrutiny …. both before and after publication far beyond the normal peer review process.”

High discount rates:  The working group worked with two alternate discount rates, 3 and 5 percent. OMB recommends that sensitivity analyses for intergenerational problems use discount rates below 3 percent. The working group went back and added a 2.5 percent discount rate. This is a critical issue: at what price do you discount tomorrow?

Catastrophic risk:  “The administration’s estimates of the social cost of carbon largely omit the risk of castastrophic climate change.”  Don’t worry, it can never get that bad seems to be the assumption — no way, no how.  This is the insurance value issue and the authors highlight a problem with applying cost-benefit analysis to insurance of such high-risk situations.

“Insurance is guaranteed to fail a simple cost-benefit test:  the average value of payments to policyholders must be less than the average value of premiums for any insurance company to remain in business.  … Policy designed from [the perspective of insuring against catastrophic risk] would not be framed in terms of cost-benefit calculations. Rather it would begin with adoption of a safe minimum standard, based on the scientific analysis of potential risks. … The risk of spending “too much” on clean energy pales in comparison with the risk of spending too little and irreversibly destabilizing the earth’s climate.”

Problems with the selected models. The interim SCC analysis asserts that there are only three relevant climate economics models when others exist. And, those three models (their data sets) all have serious problems. For example,

1. The “PAGE data set assumes that developed countries can and do engage in nearly costless adaptation to most climate damages in the next century.” Sure, don’t worry about sewer and rail systems near coastlines with rising seas, forget about agricultural systems disrupted by weather pattern shifts, forget all that … adaptation will be easy and cheap.
2. The FUND model work concludes that the early states of global warming will cause a huge reduction in mortality.  Since the near term, due to discounting values, has a higher value than the long-term, the erroneous conclusion of fewer deaths in the coming decades outweighs far greater mortality a century out.
3. The DICE model “assumes that most people in the world would be willing to pay for a warmer climate. … concludes that the optimal temperature is far above the current global average.”  It seems, one would think, that “most people in the world” would prefer that all glaciers disappear and that the winter Olympics could only be held in the Arctic (or on Antarctica).

When it comes to DICE,

“UC-Berkeley economist Michael Hanemann has used up-to-date information to reestimate each of the economic impacts of climate change in the DIC damage function, concluding that damages in the United States could be four times as large as the estimates implied by the DICE defaults”

In conclusion …

Ackerman and Stanton have laid bare a process that looks more in line with what could be expected from the fossil-fuel industry than what would be expected from a government intent on building a clean-energy economy and acting seriously to mitigate climate change.

The SCC matters.

If the appropriate social cost of CO2 emissions is in the range of $83 per ton, it is hard to see that Congress would legislate this as a cost (via cap & trade; tax; or otherwise) right now.  However, which is likely to spark serious Congressional pricing of carbon: analysis showing a SCC of $83 or a SCC of $21?  Whatever the Administration’s figure, expect that to be the starting negotiation point with Congress.  Through faulty analysis, as Ackerman and Stanton have so clearly shown, the Administration looks to be sacrificing 75% of the value before coming to the negotiating table.

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that March 2010 was, globally, the hottest March in modern temperature records. Right? That is what George Will-Ful Deceit Will will discuss with his readers, providing a thoughtful discussion of how perhaps he has been feeding them truthiness and falsehoods, with the active complicity of Fred Hiatt and The Washington Post.

Yes, any moment now George Will will inform Washington Post readers that, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),

The world’s combined global land and ocean surface temperature made last month the warmest March on record, according to NOAA. Taken separately, average ocean temperatures were the warmest for any March and the global land surface was the fourth warmest for any March on record. Additionally, the planet has seen the fourth warmest January – March period on record.

Well, March was hot.  Just how “hot” compared to the past?

The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for March 2010 was the warmest on record at 56.3°F (13.5°C), which is 1.39°F (0.77°C) above the 20th century average of 54.9°F (12.7°C).

Yes, March 2010 was 1.39 degrees F above the average March for the 20th century.

Well, when it comes to Will arguing that ice extent is greater, perhaps that (false) argument needs to be revisted.

• Arctic sea ice covered an average of 5.8 million square miles (15.1 million square kilometers) during March. This is 4.1 percent below the 1979-2000 average expanse, and the fifth-smallest March coverage since records began in 1979. Ice coverage traditionally reaches its maximum in March, and this was the 17th consecutive March with below-average Arctic sea ice coverage. .
• Antarctic sea ice expanse in March was 6.9 percent below the 1979-2000 average, resulting in the eighth smallest March ice coverage on record.

And, while Washington, DC, had snowmaggedon (and Vancouver, Canada, had shortages of snow for the Olympics) in January.

Many locations across Ontario, Canada received no snow, or traces of snow, in March, which set new low snowfall records,

Yes, George Will will look to the raft of scientific studies and reporting confirming that Global Warming is real and highlighting the warmth globally.

…

Yes, George Will, won’t he, under the pressure from Fred Hiatt and a truth-seeking Washington Post editorial board?

…

Sigh … we will wait in vein for that sort of truthful engagement.

PS:  Two places where George Will (won’t) start his homework for factual information. (Lots more exist, two at the tip of the tongue — so to speak.)

• National Wildlife Federation, Global Warming
• Scott Mandia, The complete guide to modern climate change: all the data you need to show that the globe is warming (this is perhaps the best single post that I have seen laying out the data)

UPDATE. Union of Concerned Scientists:

“The continuing warming trend of temperatures worldwide explodes the global cooling myth contrarians [like George Will] have been peddling for the past several years. While we can’t draw strong conclusions from a single month, we know that global warming will bring more record-breaking temperatures in the future. Hot months are just a harbinger of a future that could include more heat waves, more droughts, and species extinctions as animals attempt to migrate to colder areas and run out of habitat. The good news is that the degree to which global warming affects our economy and environment is ultimately up to us. If we significantly reduce emissions, we can avoid the worst effects of climate change.”

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