Get Energy Smart! NOW!

A seemingly simple question heading to the end of 2012:

What were the most notable climate-related stories of the year?

A group led by Greg Laden, interested in climate science, put together a list of notable, often, most worrying, climate-related stories of the year, along with a few links that will allow you to explore the stories in more detail. While it started, perhaps innocently, as a quest for a ‘top ten’ list, the effort to fit within an arbitrary limit quickly fell by the wayside. Thus, we did not try to make this a “top ten” list, because it is rather silly to fit the news, or the science, or the stuff the Earth does in a given year into an arbitrary number of events. (What if we had 12 fingers, and “10” was equal to 6+6? Then there would always be 12 things, not 10, on everyone’s list. Makes no sense.) We ended up with 18 items, but note that some of these things are related to each other in a way that would allow us to lump them or split them in different ways. (See this post by Joe Romm for a more integrated approach to the year’s events. Also, see what Jeff Masters did here.) We only included one non-climate (but related) item to illustrate the larger number of social, cultural, and political things that happened this year. For instance, because of some of the things on this list, Americans are more likely than they were in previous years to accept the possibility that science has something to say about the Earth’s climate and the changes we have experienced or that may be in the future; journalists are starting to take a new look at their own misplaced “objective” stance as well. Also, more politicians are starting to run for office on a pro-science pro-environment platform than has been the case for quite some time.

A failing of this list is that although non-US based people contributed, and it is somewhat global in its scope, it is a bit American based. This is partly because a few of the big stories happened here this year, but also, because the underlying theme really is the realization that climate change is not something of the future, but rather, something of the present, and key lessons learned in that important area of study happened in the American West (fires) the South and Midwest (droughts, crop failures, closing of river ways) and Northeast (Sandy). But many of the items listed here were indeed global, such as extreme heat and extreme cold caused by meteorological changes linked to warming, and of course, drought is widespread.

This list is subject to change, because you are welcome to add suggestions for other stories or for links pertaining to those already listed. Also, the year is not over yet. Anything can happen in the next few days!

Contributors: : Angela Fritz, A Siegel, Eli Rabett, Emilee Pierce, Gareth Renowden, Greg Laden, Joe Romm, John Abraham, Laurence Lewis, Leo Hickman, Michael Mann, Michael Tobis, Paul Douglas, Scott Mandia, Scott Brophy, Stephan Lewandowsky, and Tenney Naumer.

Note that even among this extensive list, while the most serious ‘challenge’ is the U.S.-centric nature of the list/discussion, here are two examples of serious ‘missing’ items:

1. Amid massive climate-chaos related issues in the United States (hint, see after the fold), the 2012 Presidential campaign operated under a cloud of ‘Climate Silence‘, with what could be described as a conspiracy between ‘The Village’ (the traditional media) and the political elite to downplay (actually, basically ignore) the mounting urgency of doing something to avoid hurtling over the Climate Cliff. And, as a corollary to this, Republican Party climate denial continues apace (with serious impact on U.S. government (at Federal, State, and Local levels) even as a growing share of the American public links extreme weather issues with climate disruption.

2. Trees, globally, seem to be suffering seriously from direct and indirect impacts from pollution. While people have noticed trees downed by Sandy, the Derecho, dying amid drought, there has been far too little notice of just how unhealthy a huge number of these trees were that made them susceptible to falling. See Wit’s End for a focus on this.

E.g., the long list that comes after the fold is far from a fully robust list of the notable 2012 climate events and issues.

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We all know that C4 is one of the dangerous explosives created by mankind.

C4 is also one of the most explosively dangerous risks ever created by humanity:

C4 =
Catastrophic
Climate
Chaos
Cliff

For decades, climate scientists and those concerned about what scientific work is telling us have struggled with the right terms to describe what humanity is doing to the planetary climate system and to, in just a few words, capture the meaning in a way that provides insight into the complexity and risks associated with this. “Global Warming”, “Climate Change”, “Climate Disruption”, “Global Weirding”, “Global Change”, … the list can on and on.

In the shadow of “The VIllage” myopic attention to “The Fiscal Cliff”, we are increasingly hearing calls for attention to be paid to the real challenge, our Climate Cliff. Even that term, however, falls short of conveying how serious our situation really is …

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Imagine this …

Twenty minutes into the 2013 State of the Union Address, President Obama turns to look to Speaker Boehner.

After a long pause, begins to  speak forcefully about the nation’s need to take climate change science seriously.

The President tells the American people that he has been meeting with scientists and energy experts for the past two months privately.

That these experts have made a forceful case that the climate situation is far more serious than he had realized.

The President explains that they have convinced him not just of the seriousness of the situation but that we still have the opportunity to turn this existential threat into opportunity.

The President speaks to this point, extemporaneously, for over ten minutes — this was not included in the prepared remarks.

This is the President speaking – not a speechwriter not the collective wisdom of political appointees from across the Administration, but President Obama who evokes his daughters, with tears, in his remarks about the need to protect our grandchildren, our children, and even ourselves.

Before the President is done speaking, the White House sends out a eleven executive orders (on such things as mandates for energy efficiency in all government rented buildings, to setting up a working group (with schedule) for developing an energy policy roadmap to a clean-energy (zero carbon emissions) future, to contracting rules to incorporate energy efficiency standards on all government contractors, to enforceable telecommuting rules to reduce ‘white collar’ days in the office across the Federal government to …) that build on Federal energy and climate-related progress during the first term invisible to most Americans. And, at the same time, the EPA releases multiple directives (such as energy standards for federal buildings and for mercury standards on coal facilities) that had been held up within the Office of Management and Budget.

The Republican response to the State of the Union is left flat-footed in the face of this wholesale shift in Obama’s approach.

And, the SOTU evening is not a single strike event.

Personnel announcements in the following days show a major revamping of the policy process, from within agencies up through the OMB, strengthening the roles and responsibilities of those advocating ‘fully burdened cost and benefit analysis’ when it comes to energy and environmental issues with reduced power for those who worked within traditional stove-piped analytical structures.

The President takes the case to the American people.

• He sits, in the front row, in meetings where leading scientists discuss climate change issues.
• He climbs on top of a Wal-Mart, with Wal-Mart’s executive team, to give a speech as to the value streams that derive from cool roofing, day-lighting, and other practices used in Wal-Mart stores to (quite profitably) drive down energy use. (Well, he also speaks about the need to treat workers fairly and to buy American there, even though the main subject is building energy efficiency.)
• He visits the US Marine Corps’ ExFob, learning from Corporals how solar panels in the field made them more effective with an understanding how Energy Smart practices improve military capabilities.
• He visits universities, where he learns that investments in energy efficiency are outperforming (by a factor of two) traditional investments making money for the endowment fund and he sits with student leaders explaining why they are battling to get the university to divest from fossil-fuel related investments.

Whenever he can, the President asks Americans:

Are you doing your part to create an Energy Smart America?

The Administration initiatives, themselves, add nearly ten percent to the expected reduction in carbon emissions by 2020.

And, in every state of the Union, accelerating a change seen with 2012’s extreme weather events, public opinion polling shows an increasing understanding of the linkages between human activities and climate change – overwhelmingly in Democratic and Independent respondents, but notably within Republican ranks.

Voices of Republicans, like former Representative Bob Inglis, who acknowledge climate change science and advocate for action to address contributing factors are becoming increasingly mainstream again.  With almost each passing day, climate science is becoming ‘a given’ while the debate focus turns to ‘what are the best ways to address the issue’: tax policy, government investments, regulatory environment, etc …

The President’s leadership, combined with Executive Branch action and the changing tone/substance of the U.S. political debate, open the door to Chinese willingness to take more aggressive actions to reduce carbon emissions growth in their energy sector.  The U.S.-PRC cooperation opens the door for serious climate talks by the end of 2013, as the world community moves from mouthing words about preventing a 2C increase in global temperatures to putting in place policies that viably could do this.

When the ball fell to signal the end of 2012, the situation looked bleak when it came to explosive C4: the risks of catastrophic climate change.  A year later, as the countdown to 2014 finished, hope for a prosperous climate-friendly future dominated the discussion about the coming year.

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The guest post comes from By. Jen Alic of at OilPrice.com. This story screams out ‘Do you want to buy a bridge‘?

Certainly the folks at Gazprom are having a good snicker, reveling in the mockery that has been made of what should have been a landmark Ukraine-Spain gas deal that would have loosened Russia’s gas grip on Kiev.

Everyone wondered how Russia would respond to Ukraine’s attempt at gas independence. But this is what happens when you mess with Gazprom.

It was a horrible moment for Ukraine last Monday—all the more horrible because the whole event was televised—when the historical $1.1 billion deal it was about to sign with Spain’s Gas Natural Fenosa turned out to be fake.

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Systematically, for numerous issues, those advocating for action to mitigate our headlong rush over the Catastrophic Climate Chaos Cliff understate the case. The scientific community, notably the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), is ‘conservative’ — taking a very measured (scientific, one might say) approach with use solely of already published peer-reviewed literature which makes the IPCC reports dated by years the moment they’re released. Advocates for action on environmental issues often overestimate the costs of action in part because it so difficult to assess the dynamic nature of technological, policy, and cultural response to mandates to reduce pollution. And, supporters for action typically understate the benefits from action due to, in part, the difficult analysis to assess systems-of-systems benefits. There are very understandable (even defendable) reasons for this, but (even though we can find the examples that break this rule) remember a systemic truth:

Advocates for climate action are understating the costs of inaction, overstating the costs of action, and understating the benefits of action.

Yesterday, Oil Change International provided an example of this fundamental truth with the (powerful) graphic to the right (full size table here). What a powerful set of images to get across the point that developed countries are subsidizing fossil fuels more than they are financing climate change action in the developing world. Wow. A powerful image that will leave an impression.

There is a problem. This significantly understates the extent of subsidization of fossil fuels for a very simple and very significant reason: externalities are not included in the equation. Increased cancer rates, polluted rivers, acid rain, greenhouse gas emissions, etc, are not included, they are ‘external’ to the graphic just as they are ‘externalities’ to the financial contracts to buy energy. That such costs are ‘externalities’ is one of the major reasons why we are failing to restructure our energy systems to a low-carbon future — advocates of action understate the case for action when they leave such externalities external to the discussion.

Note: See here for a discussion, using the social cost of carbon and the U.S. burning of coal, of how Oil Change International’s graphic/analysis understates the case.

As the world’s attention is absolutely not riveted on the international climate change talks underway in Doha, take a look to the right (full size table after the fold) for a simple reality:  the developed world has more than five times the resources going to financially-related dirty energy subsidies than it is spending in climate finance.  As Oil Change International suggests, look at these figures with this question in mind:

How serious is your country, really, about fighting climate change?

This comparison between fossil-foolish subsidies ($58 billion per year) and climate-finance pledges ($11 billion/year) is rather stark.

OECD analysis shows that fossil fuel subsidies in 2011 in Annex 2 countries were more than $58 billion. Climate finance pledges over the last three years averaged $11 billion annually.

While a 5.5 to 1 ratio might seem bad enough, we should recognize that this actually seriously understates the equation since ‘externalities’ are external to the OECD analysis.

For example, if we take a reasonable “Social Cost of Carbon” (SCC) of $80 per ton (even though some analysis puts this figure up to $1000 ton), each and every ton of coal burned for electricity production has an additional $228.80 additional subsidy as burning that ton of coal puts 2.86 tons of Co2 into the atmospheric mix (the 2.86 is one example, see this EIA report for discussion of the Co2 per ton based on type of coal). Even with the Obama Administration’s grossly understated $21 per ton SCC, this means $60.06 of externality subsidies for every ton of coal — without even considering the energy required to get the coal to electricity generation station and all the other ‘externality’ costs such as mountain-top removal damage on fragile eco-systems, increased asthma rates from particulates, and mercury’s impact on average IQ rates.

With that externality cost in mind, taking the SCC as a partial surrogate for those externalities, consider this:

CO₂ emissions from coal were down 18% to 387 million metric tons in the January-March 2012 period.

Great news, emissions down 18%.  A true success story in the United States due to very low natural gas prices (and the prospects for continued low gas prices), limited government action to begin to bring ‘grandfathered’ (and grandfather) 50 year-old coal plants into the Clean Air Act, and public pressure from efforts like the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.  

However, consider the figure: 387 million tons.  At the anemic Obama Administration $21 SCC, this represents a ‘hidden’ subsidy of nearly $8 billion just for the first three months of the year or, in quick estimate, a fossil foolish externality subsidy of over $35 billion.  With that somewhat more reasonable $80 figure, the absence of a social cost of carbon from burning coal represents an additional $140 billion annual subsidy for fossil fuel usage in the developed countries — counting only carbon pollution only from burning coal only in the United States of America.

Apply a reasonable estimate as to the full figure by placing fossil fuels’ true subsidies outside the financial equation means that the figure to the right represents only the smallest tip of the iceberg in terms of the imbalance between developed countries’ fossil foolish subsidies and their commitment to finance climate mitigation and climate adaptation efforts in the developing world.

While we are not at the stage where the world community (outside some areas, such as the EU and California) is going to put into place a global warming impact fee (e.g., a carbon tax), openly discussing the true subsidies for fossil fuels should help the drive to eliminate the (much smaller) direct financial subsidies for fossil foolish energy usage.
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Several days ago, my email burned with a weather notice from a Republican that I do pay serious attention to: Republican meteorologist Paul Douglas. This email was a weather alert:

Midday Update. The major storm we’ve been tracking for northern California and Oregon is still on track, several waves of very heavy rain (and mountain snow) impacting the west coast from tonight into the middle of next week. Significant flooding is still expected in the San Francisco Bay area and Sacramento, …

72 Hour Precipitation Forecast. Keep in mind this is in inches of rain. For the Sierra Nevada range just east of Chicago, 16-20” of liquid translates into 150-200” of snow, over a 3-4 day period, meaning impassable roads and a severe avalanche threat. For the valleys on either side of I-5 north of Sacramento it means a very significant risk of flash flooding and river flooding. I’m most concerned about facilities in far northern California and Oregon, especially near Medford.

Again, the San Francisco Bay area and Sacramento may see serious flooding from this storm, but the worst conditions will be just north, Marin County – Santa Rosa to Redding and Chico, where flooding may close roads and strand some smaller towns in the area.

My reaction to Paul:

Sort of, ‘Oh sh–!!!!!’

Do you know anything about climate change impacts on this storm?

Minor item, “Sierra Nevada range just east of Chicago”? Not sure that is what you mean (you aren’t referring to Port Chicago …) Am I missing something?

Okay, “Oh, sh–!!!!” reigns as I have concern — yet again — for serious weather impacts on fellow Americans and hope that the damage will not be too serious.

I had a LOL as the reaction, “Ugh. Chico. Chicago. Hey, I was within 1,500 miles!”

And, well, the response on climate change impacts came not from Paul but Scientific American which rushed into public access Megastorms Could Drown Massive Portions of California

Huge flows of vapor in the atmosphere, dubbed “atmospheric rivers,” have unleashed massive floods every 200 years, and climate change could bring more of them

This article laid out a massive 1861-62 flood event in California that, in my historical studies, was overshadowed by a minor little series of events associated with Fort Sumter, Bull Run, and …

intense rainstorms sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean began to pound central California on Christmas Eve in 1861 and continued virtually unabated for 43 days. The deluges quickly transformed rivers running down from the Sierra Nevada mountains along the state’s eastern border into raging torrents that swept away entire communities and mining settlements.

This storm killed 1000s of people and 100,000s of cattle. The article lays out that such a storm, nowadays, could put millions of lives at risk and $10s of billions of infrastructure.
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This post comes from a scientist who finds himself to be a Fish Out Of Water.  In a related story, see When it comes to SLR, conservatism is (unrealistic) optimism

Hurricane Sandy and a series of noreasters have combined with an apparently unprecedented one year jump in sea level to cause a wave of destruction on the U.S. east coast. The one year change of the average sea level of the North Atlantic ocean from fall 2011 to fall 2012 is about 32mm which absolutely dwarfs the computed trend of 1.7 mm/year since 1992. The approximately 32mm jump is the largest in the satellite altimetry record which began in 1992. 32mm is 1 1/4 inches, not a huge absolute rise, but an unprecedented rise in just one year. These data have not yet been verified and published, they are “live” internet data from NOAA, but the numbers are consistent with other data I have reviewed including big jumps in measured sea levels from tide gauge data (which are highly variable depending on wind speed and direction). I read the numbers off the high resolution graph, so the 32mm value is not precise or verified, but I think it’s in the ballpark.

attribution: NOAA http://ibis.grdl.noaa.gov/SAT/SeaLevelRise/slr/slr_sla_na_keep_txj1j2.png

Sea level of the north Atlantic jumped from 2011 to 2012 at an apparently unprecedented rate.

Sea surface height anomaly maps determined by satellite altimetry show that there was  a large positive sea level height anomaly off of the east coast on October 26, 2012 before hurricane Sandy hit. Note that this figure is consistent with reports that the U.S. east coast is a hotspot of sea level rise. The northward expansion of the Atlantic warm pool, pushing the Gulf Stream towards Long Island and southern New England, is apparent in the large anomalies offshore, south of New England. These hot spot anomalies of greater than 25 cm ( about 10 inches ) are what made sea level rise a significant factor in the damage to the east coast. The anomalies off of the mid-Atlantic states are about 8 times larger than the average sea level rise of the north Atlantic.

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“There must be something I can do … to help our children, to help my grandchildren…. I thought it [global warming] was bullshit … and that is because I listened, I believed Bill O’Reilly … and I saw this movie and now I will apologize to anyone I ever talked into not believing in global warming.”

A NOTE from me – @justin_kanew – the guy who shot it:

People have been asking me if this video is set up. I promise it isn’t. I was at the theater helping with the release of the movie all weekend, mostly managing the guest list. Many people came out of the movie emotional, but none as emotional as this lady. She started talking to me in a very real way, with tears in her eyes, essentially apologizing to me for her previous position on the subject and letting me know she was a Fox/O’Reilly watcher who just had her mind changed by the movie. It occurred to me that that was a pretty powerful moment, and one you don’t see every day, so i asked her if she would mind telling me that on video. She said she wouldn’t, so I pulled out my camera, and what you see here happened.

I’m a supporter of the project, and the subject, but I would not call myself a climate change activist… however I do know a powerful moment when I see one, and this was that. There’s no editing here, and this woman is not an actress. I would swear to it on the Bible, the constitution, or anything else you put in front of me.

Privately, a quite prominent climate activist — who has written excellent books and gotten himself arrested and … — sent a group of us a note that I am certain he wouldn’t mind my sharing:

Last night, at the E Street Theater in DC, I finally got the chance to see the much-talked about, very beautiful, very terrifying, deeply moving film called Chasing Ice. It’s the story of photographer James Balog’s effort to capture the astonishing retreat of the world’s great glaciers due to rapid global warming. Finally, someone has managed to put into images the greatest crisis modern humans have ever faced. You absolutely must see this film.

I’m regret that I haven’t seen it yet … but clearly I need to change that.

People ask what President Obama can do about climate change in the face of a House run by extreme cases of Anti-Science Syndrome Haters Of a Livable Environmental System. Many have proposed using the Bully Pulpit. And, within that Pulpit, include invitations to the White House (remembering that even Bachman went to the White House to have a photo with the President).

How about inviting members of Congress for popcorn and a film … Chasing Ice.

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JamesS had an interesting turn of phrase amid a discussion of the need for a national smart grid with significant change to management of our electrical system.

Patch work is great for quilts and old jeans — not so great for a 21st century Electric Utility system.

This caught my attention, the word paints a strong imagery that does reflect the patch work nature of the nation’s electrical grid.

However, the analogy is off in some ways when we consider ‘resiliency’ and smart grid elements.

We want a mix of patchwork that is strongly stitched together — but which provides value when the patch is cut off from the rest.

We should have connected islanding — on national, regional, and local levels.

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