Monthly Archives: February 2009

February 28, 2009 | 7:25 PM | By

Can There Be This Much Climate News?

"Reports to the Contrary" by Chester Arnold

"Reports to the Contrary" by Chester Arnold

Some weeks it seems like KQED could fill up its entire “news hole” with climate-related stories (thank goodness we don’t). Last week was a prime example.

Monday: A keynote speaker at U.C. Berkeley’s annual Energy Symposium said that we need a “Fed” for energy policy. John Hofmeister, a former executive at Shell Oil and founder of Citizens for Affordable Energy, told the lunch crowd that the only way to overcome the current two-year “policy cycle” (the length of a congressional term) is with an autonomous policy group like the Federal Reserve Board, which can take a longer view.

Tuesday: PG&E announced a massive new solar power initiative (it was brought to my attention this week that no news story is complete these days without the word “massive”–at least when there’s no opportunity to use “deadly”). If approved by state regulators, the project will provide 500 megawatts of photovoltaic energy by 2015. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the plan is that instead of, say, taking over huge tracts of the Mojave, the project will rely heavily on “solar infill;” making use of property already owned by the company, where they can conveniently access the grid.

Wednesday: Senator Barbara Boxer chaired a hearing of the Energy and Public Works Committee to update members on the latest climate science. They heard testimony from four experts, including Christopher Field of Stanford, who essentially said things are worse than you think. Ranking minority member James Inhofe of Oklahoma seized the moment to decry a $6.7 trillion “climate bailout,” a reference to upcoming federal climate legislation and costs associated with an aggressive plan to fight global warming. You can watch the entire two-and-a-half hour webcast for the gory details.

And of course also on Wednesday, the Coen Brothers rolled out their TV ad for The Reality Coalition, assailing the concept of “clean coal.”

Thursday: The California Air Resources Control Board rolled out new regulations to control some of the lesser known (but highly potent) greenhouse gases, including sulfur hexaflouride, used in the manufacture of computer chips. CARB says a pound of it has the same atmospheric warming potential as ten metric tons of CO2. The board also unveiled a new drought page on its website.

Friday: The Governor issued the latest in a series of drought declarations, this one proclaiming a state of emergency and called on cities to reduce their water use by 20%.

And this week wasn’t all that unusual.

Monday, another week begins with the winter’s third survey of the Sierra snowpack. While recent storms will no doubt have raised the water content from last month’s 61% of normal, it should be something of an anticlimax, especially given that the Governor didn’t wait for the numbers to make his drought declaration last week.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Power, Water, Drought, Emissions, PG&E, Policy, Power, solar
February 26, 2009 | 4:01 PM | By

No Country for “Clean Coal?”

An activist group led by the Alliance for Climate Protection has crafted another national TV ad aimed at debunking “the clean coal myth,” this one directed by Hollywood legends Joel & Ethan Coen (directors of No Country for Old Men, in case you’re still puzzling over my obscure headline).

Produced by The Reality Coalition, the ad depicts a pitchman touting a fictional product called “Clean Coal” air freshener. He’s inter-cut with shots of a family spraying what looks like coal dust out of an aerosol can and coughing. The spot ends with the coalition’s stock text message: “In reality, there is no such thing as ‘clean coal.’” The best line in the mock ad, though, is when the pitchman explains that the product “harnesses the awesome power of the word ‘clean,’” the implication being that saying something is clean doesn’t make it so.

Former Vice President Al Gore has been on the stump for some time, carrying the same message; that clean-coal technology “doesn’t exist.” Reality Coalition spokesman Brian Hardwick goes farther than that. He claims that not only does it not exist but the industry isn’t doing much to make it reality. A separate analysis by the Center for American Progress pegged the research commitment by U.S. coal companies to carbon capture technology at about $3.5 billion “over several years,” compared to combined profits of $57 billion in just one year (2007).

The clean-coal debate is relevant to Californians. Mostly through imported power, coal provides more than 16% of the electricity we use. And as I mentioned in my radio segment for The California Report, China is counting on the U-S to develop technology to allow them to burn coal “cleanly.”

While clever, the ad does kind of miss the climate connection. It seems to be aimed at particulate pollution rather than the unseen emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Hardwick responded to that critique by saying that “Truly clean coal would have to mitigate all the (environmental) issues” involved in burning the fuel. Still, it’s a source of potential confusion for viewers unclear about the distinctions among greenhouse gases, ozone-depleting gases and local air quality issues.

FILED UNDER: Power, Coal, Emissions, Power
February 25, 2009 | 10:57 AM | By

PG&E Proposes New Solar Initiative

PG&E plans to produce up to 500 megawatts of new solar power over the next five years according to a plan announced by the California utility on Tuesday.  The project will focus on northern and central California and by 2015 is expected to deliver more than 1,000 gigawatt hours of power each year, equal to the annual consumption of about 150,000 average homes, according to the company. solar-panel

The proposal, which needs approval from the state Public Utilities Commission, calls for half of the new solar power to be generated by PG&E and the other half and to be built and owned by independent developers.

Rather than establishing a giant solar array in the desert and then having to transmit the energy huge distances before it can be used, this project takes a “solar infill” approach, which uses small or mid-sized installations located within PG&E’s service area to minimize the cost and delays of connecting them to the grid.

PG&E estimates that the project will meet 1.3 percent of the utility’s energy demand and will add $.32 to each PG&E customer’s monthly electricity bill.

For more, see this in-depth article from Greentech Media.

FILED UNDER: Power, PG&E, solar
February 24, 2009 | 2:29 PM | By

Was 2008 Relatively Warm or Cool?

Answer: Both. It depends on your historical time frame.

With a global average surface temperature of 79 degrees Fahrenheit, 2008 was the coolest year since 2000, according to climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). But it’s also the ninth-warmest year since 1880, so it’s probably not time to invest in a ski resort just yet.

Including the 2008 dip, the 10 warmest years on record (since 1880) have all occurred between 1997 and 2008, according to NASA.

The NASA scientists attribute 2008′s relatively lower temperature to a cooler Pacific Ocean, due to a strong La Nina pattern in the first half of 2008. La Nina and El Nino are opposite phases of a natural oscillation of  upwelling and subsequent temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean.

2008 temperatures in the United States were cooler than any other year this decade, but, as illustrated on the map below, other parts of the world such as Eurasia and the Arctic were exceptionally warm.

Director of GISS James Hansen predicts that because a shift to El Nino is expected to start this year or next, it “still seems likely” that we’ll see a new record high for the average global surface air temperature in that time frame.

smallmain_graph_temp_lg1

FILED UNDER: El Nino, James Hansen, La Nina, NASA, Oceans, Temperature
February 22, 2009 | 5:10 PM | By

Governor Gets His White House Climate Confab

Our Governor is a hard man to ignore. Less than a month ago, he and eleven other U.S. governors wrote a letter to the new President, reminding him of commitments he made to work in earnest with states on climate issues. Governor Schwarzenegger specifically recalled a line from President (then-elect) Obama’s remarks to the Governors’ Climate Summit last November: “Any governor willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House.”

The January letter (this link is a .pdf download) requested a meeting with top-level members of the White House environmental team “as soon as possible…to discuss a state-federal partnership on clean energy and climate change issues.” This weekend the governors got their meeting.

The President didn’t show up but at least four high-level players did, including energy secretary Steven Chu, interior secretary Ken Salazar, EPA chief Lisa Jackson and the President’s energy and climate deputy, Carol Browner.

While no substantive announcements came out of it, Governor Schwarzenegger said afterward:

“Today’s meeting was the first step in creating a close and lasting partnership with President Obama and his administration on climate change. I look forward to working hand-in-hand with our federal partners to realize the ambitious clean energy and climate change goals I know we share, and that I know will provide a boost to our nation’s economy.”

Some remain skeptical that the path back to prosperity is paved with Green. California’s governor has been a vocal cheerleader for just such a strategy, to tackle both environmental and economic challenges.

The governors’ group’s stated goals include aggressive programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and harnessing “market mechanisms” (read that: “cap-and-trade”) to fund development of clean energy technology. They also want to “preserve and enhance state and local authority” in the regulation arena, and stave off “federal preemption” of what the states have already started.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, governor, Policy, Schwarzenegger, White House
February 19, 2009 | 2:21 PM | By

Record-Low Water Allocations for Farms

Photo by Sasha Khokha

Deceptively soggy fields in Fresno County. Photo by Sasha Khokha

This morning’s news for Central Valley farmers was bad–but not unexpected: record low allocations of water from state and federal irrigation systems, just as growers make their spring planting decisions.

There are two major plumbing systems that supply water for Valley farms. This morning, the federal Bureau of Reclamation said the best-case scenario will be that ag customers of its Central Valley Project get 10% of their requested water this year. Zero is more likely for most, especially if the current season’s weather patterns persist. The previous low for CVP allocations was 25% in the early 1990s.

Also today, the California Department of Water Resources confirmed its earlier estimate of 15% allocations for farms served by the State Water Project.

The recent string of rainy days has left fields soggy but failed to make a dent in the current drought. Elissa Lynn, Senior Meteorologist for the state Department of Water Resources says we’d need four or five more big storms by April to bring the state’s precipitation levels up to normal.

It’s unlikely it will keep raining hard enough, for long enough, to bring California out of a drought.

And that means more fighting over the state’s water supply. Especially when it comes to the massive state and federal plumbing projects that pipe water from northern California to make arid Central Valley fields bloom.

Not only is there less water in the state’s reservoirs, but there are restrictions on pumping it because of legal decisions to protect the endangered delta smelt.

On The California Report this morning, we visited with a Fresno County tomato farmer, to find out how he’s coping. If you missed it, that radio story will be posted here sometime today.

For more on the drought, explore Climate Watch’s newest resource, California’s Water. Visit this page for access to KQED’s drought coverage, data and reports from the Department of Water Resources and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and California water news from across the Web.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Water, Agriculture, Central Valley, Drought, Policy, Water
February 18, 2009 | 6:21 PM | By

The Cost of Ignoring Climate Change

sunheat_smMuch of the debate over addressing climate change hinges on the cost of proposed mitigation efforts.  Some say we can’t afford the extraordinary measures required to cut greenhouses gases, particularly in the current economic train wreck.  What gets less attention is the cost of doing nothing.

This has been a controversial idea since the Stern Review called attention to the issue in 2006. That report concluded that unless one percent of global GDP was diverted to mitigate the worst effects of climate change, the world could lose up to 5% of  global GDP each year and the total damage could claim as much as 20%.

A set of new reports out of the University of Oregon inserts fresh numbers into the debate. According to researchers, three western states are each likely to lose more than $3 billion a year in climate change-related costs by 2020, if nothing is done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  By 2080, the projected annual costs range from $9-to-$18 billion for each state.

The reports, which focus on Washington, Oregon, and New Mexico, assume a business-as-usual scenario where both carbon emissions and temperature continue to rise at rates similar to those seen in recent years. Under these conditions, these states (and California, according to the prevalent research) can expect more severe droughts and floods, less snowfall,  more wildfires and habitat loss, and a higher incidence of climate-associated health problems and deaths.

In New Mexico, the study’s authors expect summer temperatures to climb 12.6 degrees above current averages by 2080,  spiking air-conditioning costs, health-care complications, and the state’s death rate.  By 2020, annual climate-related health care costs in New Mexico alone are expected to top $1.3 billion.

California’s temperatures, under business-as-usual scenarios, are widely expected rise between six and ten degrees by the end of century.  Even in a relatively cool state like Washington, health care impacts would make up $421 million, or 32%, of total annual climate-related costs, under this pr0jection.

The study attributed the largest costs (more than $1 billion annually in each state) to inefficient consumption of energy, a projection that might not pan out, given the Obama Adminstration’s focus on green technology and clean energy efforts.

Other costs cited by the study include reduced salmon populations and food production, lost recreational opportunities (sell your snowboard now), and more intense and frequent wildfires and storms.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Power, Air, Ecosystems, Emissions, greenhouse gases, new Mexico, Policy
February 16, 2009 | 11:09 AM | By

Amateur Bird Counts Really Do Count

Photo by 10,000 Birds contributor Mike

The yellow-billed magpie could lose 75% of its range. Photo by Mike Bergin

The hardiest of volunteers are winding up the Audubon Society’s Great Backyard Bird Count today. Consistent rain has made it a challenge throughout much of California (don’t get me wrong–you won’t see me complaining about rain at this point).

These bird counts are more than just feel-good exercises in pubic education. The data is useful in serious research,  like the Society’s recent stunning report on the likely effects of climate change on bird populations. The study, released last week, combined climate models with 40 years of data from Aububon’s Christmas Bird Count, to paint a grim picture for California’s birds.

The part of the study that focused on California warned that a third of the state’s native bird populations could see their ranges shrink substantially as the planet warms. According to the report:

“These reductions will be part of massive range shifts to all of the state’s bird species caused wholly or in part by the effects of climate change.”

Gary Langham, who co-authored the California study, says it should provide a wake-up call, and not just for those crafting policy to cut greenhouse gas emissions: “It’s also a tool for land managers and conservation groups and others to look at the landscape and understand where their conservation investments would be most wisely spent.”

Langham and his co-author, William B. Monahan note that this is more than a projection:

“Climate change is already pushing species globally poleward and higher in  elevation. In California, directional changes in climate during the 20th century were substantial.”

That squares with the observations of local birdwatchers. Tom Rusert, who founded the non-profit Sonoma Birding, says he’s seen a huge influx of American robins (something that might be a welcome sight in my hometown of Syracuse, NY, right about now). Rusert says his Sonoma Valley Christmas Bird Count drew 150 volunteers last year.

Thanks to nature sound recordists Martyn Stewart of Naturesound and Bernie Krause of Wild Sanctuary for providing bird calls for last week’s radio story. The magpie photo comes to us by way of 10,000 Birds.

FILED UNDER: Birds, Ecosystems, Species shift
February 14, 2009 | 7:05 PM | By

IPCC Scientist: A “Vicious Cycle” of Carbon Spikes

For a while now, we’ve been hearing that greenhouse gas emissions are still off the charts, which is to say increasing beyond the U.N.’s worst-case scenario for global warming. Now a Stanford researcher has laid out some specific scenarios–and they’re not pretty.

Chris Field, who is working on the next IPCC report, said “There is a real risk that human-caused climate change will accelerate the release of carbon dioxide from forest and tundra ecosystems, which have been storing a lot of carbon for thousands of years.”

Field, a professor of biology and of environmental Earth system science at Stanford, and a senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, issued a warning for members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago today: “We don’t want to cross a critical threshold where this massive release of carbon starts to run on autopilot.”

And yet, that would appear to be path that we’re on. As Field told the AAAS symposium, “We now have data showing that from 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions increased far more rapidly than we expected, primarily because developing countries, like China and India, saw a huge upsurge in electric power generation, almost all of it based on coal.”

So what would some of the consequences be? “Tropical forests are essentially inflammable,” Field said. “You couldn’t get a fire to burn there if you tried. But if they dry out just a little bit, the result can be very large and destructive wildfires. It is increasingly clear that as you produce a warmer world, lots of forested areas that had been acting as carbon sinks could be converted to carbon sources. Essentially we could see a forest-carbon feedback that acts like a foot on the accelerator pedal for atmospheric CO2.”

The loss of functioning forests worldwide is already estimated to account for about 20% of carbon emissions. But field also warns of another carbon burst from decomposed plants that have been locked in permafrost for tens of thousands of years. As if all that weren’t plenty, Field says the accelerated forest destruction and melting permafrost could combine to create a “vicious cycle” of accelerated carbon emissions.

Field sums up by saying: “We now know that, without effective action, climate change is going to be larger and more difficult to deal with than we thought.”

The Chicago symposium is being held to address new developments since the last IPCC interim report, in 2007. A formal update is due out next year. Field is co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group 2, which is assessing the impacts of climate change on social, economic and natural systems.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Cryosphere, Emissions, IPCC, Policy
February 12, 2009 | 5:11 PM | By

Boulder Bunnies May Break Ground with ESA

Copyright 2006, Doug Von Gausig

Photo: Copyright 2006, Doug Von Gausig

The American pika has begun a long-delayed journey toward possible listing under the Endangered Species Act.  It could become the first mammal in the Lower 48, let alone California, to be listed as specifically threatened by global warming.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service agreed today to review the petition, as part of a court settlement with San Francisco’s Center for Biological Diversity.

Under the settlement, negotiated by lawyers with Earthjustice, the agency commits to a May deadline for determining whether the cartoon-cute alpine critter merits consideration for federal protection.

Pika live in rock colonies only at high elevation (usually above 9,000 feet, though some have been documented lower). They’re well insulated against the harsh mountain environment but can suffer heat stroke at temperatures approaching 80 F.

As alpine temperatures increase with global warming, conservationists worry that the pika will be driven further upslope and eventually out of existence.

Back in the fall of 2007, CBD petitioned for listing under both the federal and California ESA’s. The feds more or less ignored the request. California turned it down flat, saying there was insufficient data to warrant a review. There was also some sentiment on the commission that using global warming as a basis for listing any species would be setting an uncomfortable precedent. CBD sued both agencies and the California case is still in court.

Not all scientists are convinced that the pika’s in trouble. Find out why in our Climate Watch radio feature, Monday morning on The California Report. Listen to the story here.

By the way, “boulder bunny” is a fairly accurate description. They may look like rodents but pika are actually relatives of rabbits and hares.

Use the audio player below to hear Doug Von Gausig’s recording of pika vocalizing.

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Audio recording provided by Doug Von Gausig and NatureSongs.com

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Alpine, Conservation, Ecosystems, endangered species, Fish and Wildlife, Pika, Policy