Monthly Archives: April 2009

April 16, 2009 | 8:32 AM | By

One More Reason to Hate Spam

As if we didn’t have enough already. We’re talking about the Internet kind, of course, not the canned variety.

Drawing on a study from protective software maker McAfee, ABC News has posted an interesting take on Internet junk mail and the carbon emissions associated with it. The upshot is that the energy used in spewing out 62 trillion (yes, with a “t”) individual pieces of spam last year could power all Bay Area homes or some entire states.

But beyond just another villification of uninvited come-ons for “male enhancement” or Nigerian money schemes, it sort of drives home the point that everything seems to have some kind of carbon footprint–even activities that take place entirely in the “digishpere.”

Here’s another take on the report from The Tech Herald.

FILED UNDER: Power, Emissions, internet
April 14, 2009 | 10:59 AM | By

Girding Against the Fire Season

Firefighters at the Martin Fire in the Santa Cruz mountains near Bonny Doon, CA in June, 2008. Photos by Tim Walton.

Firefighters at the Martin Fire in the Santa Cruz mountains near Bonny Doon, CA in June, 2008. Photos by Tim Walton.

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Tonight, on KQED Public Television, Quest: California at the Tipping Point explores some of the ways in which climate change will likely affect our state, including an increased risk of wildfire.

Last year, California’s fire season got off to an early and catastrophic start–and this year, generous spring rains could not cover the shortfall from two previous years of scarce precipitation. The late rains might forestall fire conditions for a while but more fires are inevitable.

Last June, more than 1,000 wildfires started in one weekend.  Throughout the course of the season, thousands more fires burned and hundreds of homes were damaged.  But if you’re among those who live in the “urban-wildland interface,” there are steps you can take to lower your home’s vulnerability to wildfire.

In the video clip below, a CalFire official tells Vicki Liviakis, who lost her home in the 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm, how vegetation around the house can feed a wildfire, and explains how Californians can create landscapes that reduce fire risk.  (You can watch the full 28-minute video, co-hosted by Liviakis and Climate Watch Sr. Editor Craig Miller, on YouTube.)

CalFire maintains this map, which tracks current fire incidents in California.  You can check this throughout the fire season for an overview of the state’s burns.

On tonight’s Quest program, Climate Watch Sr. Editor Craig Miller talks with CalFire’s Chief Deputy Director Crawford Tuttle about the increasing fire risk California faces due to rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns.

Below are the latest maps from CalFire depicting California’s regions and communities most at risk.

CalFire's map of statewide fire threat

CalFire's map of statewide fire threat

CalFire's map of California communities at risk

CalFire's map of California communities at risk

FILED UNDER: fire, landscape, Quest, Wildfire
April 14, 2009 | 10:53 AM | By

Some Surprises in Fire-Climate Connection

Tonight, San Francisco’s KQED Public Television (HD 9) will air the first collaboration between Climate Watch and Quest, its weekly series on science & environmental topics. “California at the Tipping Point” is a half-hour special that explores the likely affects of climate change on the state. One of those anticipated effects is greater risk of wildfire. This post expands on the program with some of the recent science in that arena.

The conventional wisdom is that a warming planet means more wildfires–and in many cases the conventional wisdom is right. But globally it’s a more complex question.

Just last week, Max Moritz and his team at UC Berkeley’s Center for Fire Research & Outreach published a study that shows widely varied fire response to climate changes around the world. Post-doctoral fellow Meg Krawchuk was the lead data cruncher in the effort, with contributions from researchers at Texas Tech University.

What they found were suggestions of rapid changes in fire regimes, and not all in the same direction. Some places (like most of California) will likely see a spike in the fire hazard, while other regions (like the Pacific Northwest) could see a retreat of wildfire frequency and intensity:

“In contrast to any expectation that global warming should necessarily result in more fire, we find that regional increases in fire probabilities may be counter-balanced by decreases at other locations, due to the interplay of temperature and precipitation variables. Despite this net balance, our models predict substantial invasion and retreat of fire across large portions of the globe.”

Moritz has been stumping for new approaches to fire-climate analysis. He says rather than treat fire strictly as the product of other climate change variables, we should think of it also as a climate driver.

Map shows areas of potential fire advance (orange) and reatreat (blue) by 2010-2039 (medium-high emissions scenario)

Map shows areas of potential fire advance (orange) and retreat (blue) by 2010-2039 (medium-high emissions scenario)

You can use the player below to hear an excerpt from my interview with Moritz, in which he explains the new perspective that he thinks his team’s study brings to the fire-climate connection.

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FILED UNDER: Alpine, Ecosystems, Quest, Wildfire
April 10, 2009 | 2:51 PM | By

China: Have a Carb and a Smile

carb_stockWhat does coal power have to do with popping a can of soda? This morning, NPR’s Anthony Kuhn reported on a power plant in China that is successfully capturing some of the carbon dioxide it releases. They extract it, liquefy it, and send it off to companies that use it in dry ice, fire extinguishers, and even carbonated beverages. A handful of power plants in U.S. are already doing the same.

Of course, when it comes to reducing carbon emissions, capture is only half the battle. The carbon snared from these plants is only temporarily stored – it gets released eventually–like when someone pops the top of the soda can.  It’s more like carbon recycling. The greater hurdle is in “sequestering” part of it.  In order to make a lasting difference in cutting emissions, that carbon has to be stored permanently.

President Obama has signaled that developing carbon sequestration technology is a key part of his energy plan, and is handing out billions in stimulus dollars.  But the U.S. is already behind the curve.  While there are several ways to store carbon, the main focus has been on storing carbon underground in geologic formations. There are several power plants in Europe that are already capturing and sequestering carbon emissions underground.  The Bush Administration backed off its first attempt at carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the FutureGen project, in 2008 after the costs became too high. The name of game now is to simply get a demonstration plant working. Anywhere.

Here in California, CCS is an option, thanks to the underground geologic formations throughout the Central Valley that could be ideal sites. A western consortium known as WESTCARB is leading the charge with backing from the California Energy Commission and the Department of Energy.  They’ve announced a pilot project in Bakersfield where carbon will be captured from a 50-megawatt power plant. But construction is described as still “months away.”

As with any new technology, cost is the make-or-break issue.  Capturing and stashing carbon is prohibitively expensive–at least until there’s a price on carbon or the technology improves. This week, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said he doesn’t expect to see cost-effective technology for at least eight years. And he raised another point. “Even if the United States or Europe turns its back on coal, India and China will not,” Chu said.  At last fall’s climate summit in Los Angeles, members of the Chinese delegation told Climate Watch that they were looking to the U.S. to provide key technology. But as Anthony Kuhn reported, the Chinese went to Australia to get technical advice.

It’s commonly forecast that coal will remain a central power source in the U.S. for decades to come. But as critics of carbon sequestration have stated, it’s really a question of whether cost-effective technology will arrive in time to slow down climate change.

Lauren Sommer is an associate producer with Quest at KQED, and a self-described “carbon geek.” Her story on plans for a “smart” electrical grid is Monday’s Quest Radio feature.

FILED UNDER: Power, Carbon capture, China, Emissions, International
April 10, 2009 | 8:20 AM | By

Climate Change and Public Health

Photo by Genie Gratto

Photo by Genie Gratto

Many believe that climate change presents us with opportunities to tackle multiple problems with a single well-designed response. The authors of this guest post suggest that public health presents one of those opportunities.

Public Health and Climate Change: A Shared Agenda

by Marice Ashe and Richard Jackson

Climate change may be the greatest threat to human health in this century. More intense heat waves will make bad air even worse. More severe droughts and floods will further imperil the water supply California is already struggling to protect. The world is going to see a rise in the number of water-, food-, insect- and animal-borne diseases we have to fight.

Who will suffer most? The elderly, children and the poor—populations that are least able to and can least afford to adapt to such extreme conditions. Although public health leaders have a responsibility to protect and enhance the well-being of the entire population—and especially those most at risk—we have lagged behind in considering climate change as one of the threats that we must confront.

In March, we released An Action Plan for Public Health: Initial Recommendations for Involving Public Health in Climate Change Policy, assembled after talking to more than 150 experts in public health, climate science and environmental law. We hope it helps the public health community think in new terms about their mission.

We must work faster, because making communities healthier can prevent climate change. For example, we work with communities all around California to create safe walking paths and bike routes throughout cities. We encourage these changes to prevent obesity and increase community safety. But when people get out of their cars, they also put less carbon emissions in the air. We call this a “co-benefit:” by taking one action to improve physical health, we gain other benefits to improve planetary health.

Other co-benefits happen when we encourage the development of new housing and retail centers close to public transit. This increases exercise while keeping people out of their cars. But why stop there? Transit-oriented development also preserves agricultural lands for food production and protects our food security. With anticipated changes in rainfall, agricultural pest and disease patterns will shift, too.  Safeguarding a regionally based and resilient food system should be a primary public health goal in addressing climate change.

We are working with communities to make it easier to hold farmer’s markets, get more healthy foods in corner markets, and increase fresh fruits and vegetables in schools. This is particularly critical in poor and under-served areas where it’s harder to find healthy and affordable food. The public health goal is to lower rates of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, which are epidemic in those communities. As a co-benefit, it expands opportunities for local and regional growers who bring the food a much shorter distance on the way to market, thus dropping transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.

Improving public health will mitigate climate change, and fighting global warming will make people healthier. By approaching this impending public health disaster from many directions, we stand a better chance of making a real difference.

Marice Ashe, JD, MPH directs Public Health Law & Policy, which partners with advocates, health departments, and policy-makers to create healthier communities. PHLP provides in-depth research and analysis on legal and policy questions, and translates complex information into practical tools and model policies for community action.

Richard Jackson, MD, MPH is the Chair of the Environmental Health Sciences division of the UCLA School of Public Health. He is the former director of CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and California State Public Health officer.  Dr. Jackson is a member of the PHLP Board of Directors.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Health, Policy, Public Health
April 7, 2009 | 5:31 PM | By

California’s Climate Partners Get Cold Feet

On Wednesday’s edition of The California Report, correspondent Tom Banse takes the pulse of a vital organ in California’s climate strategy; the regional carbon trading market. The upshot: Reports of its well-being may be greatly exaggerated.

Are they with us?  It’s hard to tell looking at some of California’s supposed partners in the Western Climate Initiative.

WCI includes six states besides California and four Canadian provinces.  Last year the group agreed on a regional “cap-and-trade” plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (and not coincidentally to show the federal government how it’s done).  Governors and environmental agencies in the participating states continue to voice support for moving ahead with a regional initiative.  The rub is that the executive branch cannot just snap its fingers and will the plan into being.  A major policy change like this requires state legislatures to adopt the cap-and-trade rules.  And some of those lawmakers definitely have other ideas.

Utah offers the most dramatic example.  Before adjourning for the year, the state House of Representatives voted 52-19 in favor of a non-binding resolution directed at Utah Governor Jon Huntsman:

    “…WHEREAS, experts, including the Congressional Budget Office, warn against cap and trade policies, especially regional programs like the seven-member WCI;WHEREAS, experts also point out that the costs of such programming will be borne by consumers, placing a disproportionately high burden on poorer households; andWHEREAS, no state or nation has enhanced economic opportunities for its citizens or increased real GDP through cap and trade or other carbon reduction policies:NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the House of Representatives urges the Governor to withdraw Utah from the Western Climate Initiative.”

Huntsman, a Republican, is apparently ignoring the legislative shot across his bow.

Skepticism is also alive and well in the Arizona Legislature, where this preemptive strike skips the whereases and gets right to the job of handcuffing the executive branch.

    “The [Arizona Department of Environmental Quality] shall not participate in the Western climate initiative that is organized and operated by an affiliation of state governors and one or more provinces of Canada.”

The succinct bill has passed out of state House committee and awaits a floor vote.

Meanwhile in New Mexico, the legislature is done for the year.  Legislation to authorize a greenhouse gas emissions cap was not even broached.  Montana’s legislature is still in session, but all lawmakers in Helena have the stomach to tackle is preparatory measures.  They would set up the regulatory framework for underground carbon storage (aka, sequestration) and require large companies to track and report their carbon emissions.

At his glassmaking plant in southwestern Washington, Steve Smith worries that a regional cap on carbon emissions will render his business unable to compete with suppliers outside the region. Photo by Tom Banse.

At his glass making plant in southwestern Washington, Steve Smith worries that a regional cap on carbon emissions will render his business unable to compete with suppliers outside the region. Photo by Tom Banse.

The governors of Oregon and Washington State served up the full climate enchilada to their legislatures this January only to see it picked apart.

That leaves California as the sole state in the Western Climate Initiative that has so far adopted cap-and-trade as the law of the land.  California’s partners have consistently told us that a national program is the preferable way to regulate greenhouse gases.  Now the “preferable” way is starting to look like the only way.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, carbon trading, Economics, Emissions, International, Policy, WCI
April 5, 2009 | 10:02 AM | By

Climate Debate Runs Hot and Cold

We see occasional references in our discussions here to a “cooling phase” over the past decade or so. It’s often evoked in arguments against the case for global warming. Of course, in the centuries-long span of the Earth’s climate patterns, a decade or so is a mere blip on the screen.

Now a climatologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab has co-authored a paper that warns against using “periods of a decade or two” to argue the case one way or the other (we also often hear people use temperature data from recent hotter years as evidence for global warming).

Andrew Revkin summarizes the findings in his blog for the New York Times.

Wehner works in the Computational Research Division at LBNL and co-authored the paper with NOAA scientist David Easterling of the National Climatic Data Center, in Ashville, NC. Easterling wrote the Center’s FAQ page on global warming, in which he includes this answer to the question of whether the global climate is warming:

“Global surface temperatures have increased about 0.74°C (plus or minus 0.18°C) since the late-19th century, and the linear trend for the past 50 years of 0.13°C (plus or minus 0.03°C) per decade is nearly twice that for the past 100 years. The warming has not been globally uniform. Some areas (including parts of the southeastern U.S. and parts of the North Atlantic) have, in fact, cooled slightly over the last century. The recent warmth has been greatest over North America and Eurasia between 40 and 70°N. Lastly, seven of the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 2001 and the 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1995.”

As for the geographic fluctuations, Robert Bornstein of San Jose State has produced data showing a general cooling trend along the California coast over the past 30 or 40 years. But he’s quick to point out that the anomaly is most likely a result of, not an argument against the broader global warming trend.

FILED UNDER: LBNL, NOAA, Temperature, Warming
April 2, 2009 | 1:21 PM | By

Survey Says: Drought Still On

It’s still “cause for concern.” That’s how California’s water chief summed up the water outlook for this summer, based on the latest survey. The Sierra snowpack stands at 81% of normal for this date, according to today’s measurements by the state Department of Water Resources.

Chopping up the Sierra Nevada into segments, Northern California fared a little better at 87%. The situation deteriorates as you move southward, with Southern Sierra stations clocking in at 77% of normal.

In most years, the April survey marks the peak of the season’s snow water content.

Ultimately what matters is runoff, or the total amount of water that actually comes off the mountains with the spring melt. And snowpack isn’t necessarily a good predictor of that, as we heard in David Gorn’s story on The California Report and in his blog notes from today.

Just yesterday the Governor’s Climate Action Team released its 2009 assessment of likely climate change effects in California. One  predicted outcome is that ripple effects from water shortages could run up a tab of $3 billion per year. And that’s the rosy scenario, based on being able to quickly move 5 million acre-feet of water to where it’s needed. Eileen Tutt of Cal-EPA cautions that the actual capacity of the current system to quickly redistribute water is closer to 1 million acre-feet. An acre-foot is about the amount of water that a typical household uses in one year.

FILED UNDER: Water, Alpine, Department of Water Resources, snowpack, Water
April 2, 2009 | 11:56 AM | By

Fire and (Less) Ice: California’s Climate Future

firesign_blogThere was little “news” in this week’s report from California’s inter-agency Climate Action Team. The distillation of 37 academic studies mostly affirmed what we’ve been hearing from multiple sources lately; that “severe and costly impacts” likely lie ahead as the state’s climate changes.

The report’s findings are aligned with two of the scenarios modeled by the U.N.’s climate panel; the “B1″ outlook for moderate emissions of CO2, and the higher-emissions “A2″ scenario. While California has ambitious plans to curb carbon emissions, many recent reports agree that the world is presently on a path toward emissions even higher than the worst IPCC scenario.

Under that more severe tableau, says report co-author Dan Cayan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, the number of wildfires in the state could double by 2085. Cayan said that “by every model,” the state is warming and in some areas, drying. One regional model sees precipitation in Southern California tailing off by 10% in years to come.

There’s more coverage of the report in Jane Kay’s article for the San Francisco Chronicle and Bettina Boxall’s story in the L.A. Times.

The Times article points to some relatively “good” news in the report; a UCLA study that the strength of fire-fanning Santa Ana winds may be subsiding. But there is also research out of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that points to a longer Santa Ana season, so it’s unclear what the net effect might be in the long run.

In a media conference call attended by report authors and state officials, I asked about murmurings that the Western Climate Initiative may be unraveling. Eileen Tutt of Cal-EPA denied that the planned regional cap & trade program for cutting carbon emissions is in trouble. She said that in working with people from California’s six potential partner states, it’s her view that they “aren’t backing off at all.” She admitted that “rumors abound,” however.

Climate Watch has dispatched freelance correspondent Tom Banse to look further into those rumors. He’ll be reporting in from Washington and Oregon in the weeks to come.

FILED UNDER: Government & Business, Water, Emissions, Policy, Water, Wildfire
April 1, 2009 | 6:15 PM | By

Handicapping the Snowpack Derby

shasta_0759

On the eve of the season’s fourth Sierra snow survey, David Gorn files a report that poses the question: “Is it time for Californians to redefine the term “drought?” His report airs on The California Report Thursday morning and some additional thoughts appear here:

Anybody who’s lived in California for a while has been trained to watch the snow. When the monthly snow surveys come around, we handicap them like they’re the Triple Crown. We all know what’s at stake: when it doesn’t snow, our reservoirs don’t get enough runoff, and we dive deeper into drought.

The snowpack gives us a sneak preview of the coming summer, when our other water sources dry up. The last big snow measurement of the season happens on Thursday. State officials are hoping for the best but preparing for something less than a miracle.

We get about a third of our water from snowpack runoff. But the biggest number in water circles is not the number of inches of snow. It’s the amount of runoff that snowmelt produces. And that can be deceiving, which may explain the caution that always seems to pervade official post-survey pronouncements.

Case in point: Last year at this time, the snowpack measurement was 100% of normal and state officials were breathing easier. And yet the amount of runoff that snow produced last year was only 58 percent of normal, and that’s frighteningly low.

What accounts for the difference? Department of Water Resources meteorologist Elissa Lynn says that the wind can disperse snow, which happened last year (maybe Nevada had a “windfall”). Also, a hot spring can melt snow before its time, resulting in too much runoff being released too early, leaving too little for the summer months.

A deceptively full Stafford Lake reservoir in northern Marin County. Photo by David Gorn.

A deceptively full Stafford Lake reservoir in northern Marin County. Photo by David Gorn.

A little rainy weather can be deceiving, too. Even though some local reservoirs around the state topped off–or nearly so–with the late-season storms of February and March, some of the people served by those same reservoirs may still face rationing this summer. That’s because many communities draw their water from multiple sources, which may include mountain runoff.

Projections this year are for snowpack runoff to clock in at about 70% of normal. That beats than the 52% and 58% of the previous two years but is still cause for concern.

FILED UNDER: Water, Alpine, runoff, snowpack, Water