Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 103

9 Years Of Climate Progress And 3 Big Reasons To Celebrate

Climate Progress owes its existence to Hurricane Katrina. But it is only a decade after Katrina that we have actually seen anything resembling genuine “progress on climate” in the world.

After my brother lost his Mississippi home in the Hurricane Katrina storm surge, he asked me for advice on whether or not he should rebuild there. I started interviewing climate experts, going to seminars, and reading the scientific literature for what ultimately turned into a book, “Hell and High Water” — and this blog.

Our top climate scientists impressed upon me the fact that the climate situation was far more dire than I had realized, far more dire than 98 percent of opinion makers and politicians understood — a situation that, sadly, remains true today. I also realized that climate scientists and the major media were not doing a good job of communicating the danger.

One piece of the climate progress of recent years is that climate scientists are doing a much better job of both speaking out and communicating effectively. The media, however, has until very recently gotten worse — with far less coverage and far fewer dedicated climate reporters than we had a decade ago.

Prior to Katrina, I had been focused on working with companies to develop and deploy low-carbon technologies, including three years in the mid-1990s helping to oversee the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, the largest cleantech RDD&D (Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment) program in the world at the time. But after Katrina I wanted to focus on communications so I joined the Center for American Progress in the summer of 2006 because it had become the cutting-edge think tank for both policy and communications on progressive issues.

I began part time on the one-year anniversary of Katrina, posting on this blog once a day. As readership grew and ClimateProgress.org became a leading voice on energy and climate issues, I began posting more. I became a full-time blogger, writing several times a day. A few years ago, we added a deputy editor and formally merged with CAP’s flagship website, ThinkProgress. Now CP has several staff, and our articles are routinely featured on the front page of ThinkProgress. Climate Progress’s readership has steadily risen — and our social media interactions have skyrocketed.

ClimateProgress is easily the most influential dedicated climate website on social media today. Not only do we have more than 400,000 Facebook followers and another 120,000 Twitter followers — but ThinkProgress also shares our articles to its 1.5 million FB followers and almost 400,000 Twitter followers. The most popular ClimateProgress articles get many tens of thousands of FB likes — and their headlines and key points are seen by millions.

One measure of climate progress, at least online, is that the websites that push climate-science denial have totally fizzled out on social media, despite considerable effort. Why? Science is inherently a social enterprise — an intrinsically interesting voyage of discovery in which scientists build on each others’ work toward a better and better understanding of the world around us. Denial, being anti-science, is in some sense an anti-social activity whose goal is to stop society from listening to the scientific community about the ever-growing risks to society posed by unrestricted emissions of carbon pollution. The deniers operate an inherently monotonous treadmill of anti-truth, misunderstanding, and disinformation that builds only toward nihilism. No wonder it bombs on social media.

Of course there are far more important measures of climate progress — from China to cleantech to the Pope.

China and Paris

The game-changing November 2014 U.S.-China climate deal — where the U.S. pledged to reduce CO2 emissions by 25-28 percent in 2020 versus 1990 levels in return for China for the first time committing to peak in CO2 emissions by 2030 if not sooner — helped break the longstanding logjam in international climate negotiations between developed and developing nations. It resulted in a flood of commitments from other countries, which has created the genuine possibility of a breakthrough climate deal in Paris this December.

My June 2015 trip to China to meet with top governmental and non-governmental experts on clean energy and climate made clear to me the country’s leaders are serious about cleaning up their polluted air and beating their climate targets. It is widely believed in Beijing that China will peak in CO2 by 2025. It may be peaking in coal now. It will still take considerably more effort by China, the United States, and the world to keep total warming below the 2°C defense line that top scientists increasingly tell us we must not cross. But we have collectively started to take actions needed to keep that possibility alive, albeit barely.

Cleantech Comes of Age

At the Department of Energy, I had a chance to work with leading scientists and engineers at our national laboratories. I came to understand that the technology for reducing our emissions was already at hand and at a far lower cost than was widely understood — if we had smart government policies to drive those technologies into the marketplace and continue their march down the cost curve. Then I worked with some of the nation’s leading corporations, helping them to adopt CO2-reducing technologies and strategies that boosted both profits and productivity.

Now, finally, it is clear to everyone that the DOE projections from two decades ago were accurate. The price of solar by itself has dropped more than 99 percent since 1977 and 95 percent since the late 1990s.

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Many other key technologies needed to avert catastrophic warming — wind, energy-efficient lighting, advanced batteries—have also seen a steady and in some cases remarkable drop in prices. This price drop has been matched by a steady improvement in performance. For instance, the best manufacturers have already reached the battery price needed for electric vehicles to have cost parity with conventional cars.

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Maybe at some point in the past you could believe that climate action was too expensive, but not any more. The world’s top scientists, energy experts, economists, and governments have all spelled out in great detail that even the strongest climate action is super cheap. That is climate progress!

The Pope

Finally, we have seen more and more opinion makers speak out on climate change. Maybe the most significant among them is Pope Francis, whose recent 195-page encyclical has spurred a global debate about the moral urgency for climate action. I would urge anyone needing motivation to accept and tackle the challenges we face in the years head to read it.

The Pope’s message is at its core a simple one: “We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it.”

We have a long way to go to preserve a livable climate, a long way to go to make sure all of our great coastal cities — including New Orleans itself — don’t suffer the same devastation Katrina brought. But we have finally seen some genuine climate progress — especially compared to our previous “no strategy” strategy of keeping our foot on the accelerator as we headed toward the cliff of catastrophic warming while wishing for some miraculous technological deus ex machina to save us.

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Climate ChangeHurricane Katrina

The post 9 Years Of Climate Progress And 3 Big Reasons To Celebrate appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Why Did 7 Big Oil Companies Submit Climate Pledges To The United Nations?

Earlier this week, seven oil and gas companies proposed methane emissions cuts as part of their contribution to a global climate deal ahead of the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris later this year.

The companies — including the United States’ Southwestern Energy and Norway’s Statoil — have committed to cutting methane in oil production “by systematically surveying for nine key emission sources” and then reporting those findings to the public, the United Nations’ Climate Action website said. Specific reduction numbers were not listed in the database, though concrete reduction targets could be released at a later date.

Methane is a dangerous greenhouse gas that is 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Oil and gas production produces methane either via leaking infrastructure, or through a process known as flaring, where excess methane is intentionally released and then burned. Reducing methane emissions from oil and gas production could go a long way to helping the globe stay under a 2°C warming scenario — the International Energy Agency has estimated that curbing methane from upstream oil and gas production could account for 15 percent of the global emissions reductions needed to stay under 2°C.

“It’s heartening to see these companies understand the climate situation and understand the contribution that methane makes,” Han Chen, international climate advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), told ThinkProgress. “I think that a lot of these corporations are facing inquiries from investors, looking at the divestment campaign, and seeing that they are going to have to eventually change their strategy.”

But when a company’s entire business is the extraction of fossil fuels for profit, their climate commitments need to be looked at critically, Greenpeace’s Travis Nichols told ThinkProgress.

“In general, it’s really good to consider the source of these things. You think, ‘Okay, this is an oil company, its entire M.O. is to extract fossil fuel,'” Nichols said. “If they’re making certain kinds of pledges, then we probably need to push them harder.”

In early June, six oil companies wrote a letter to the UN’s climate chief, pledging their support for international climate commitments and emphasizing their willingness to work with international bodies to place a price on carbon.

That’s a good start, Chen said, but environmentalists still want to see oil and gas companies go further. Recent scientific analysis suggests that to keep global temperatures under 2°C, 49 percent of the world’s remaining natural gas reserves and 33 percent of its remaining oil can’t be burned as fuel, meaning that oil and gas companies will need to look beyond their current infrastructure if they want to help prevent dangerous levels of climate change.

“We’re pretty happy that these corporations are even acknowledging that this is a serious problem that we’re facing, but what we need them to commit to over the long term needs to be significantly more than this,” Chen said. “We don’t think that thinking about a carbon price and just reducing methane leakage is going to be enough. In the long term, we’re talking about moving toward low carbon solutions.”

The commitments to methane reductions come just days after the Obama administration proposed methane regulations for new and modified oil and gas wells across the country. In January, the administration announced a goal of cutting methane emissions from the oil and gas sector between 40 and 45 percent by 2025, compared to 2012 levels.

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Climate ChangeOilUnited Nations

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The Dry Weather That’s Hitting The Tar Sands Industry Is ‘A Preview Of The Future,’ Scientist Says

Dozens of tar sands developers in Alberta’s tar sands have been suspended from taking water — needed for their operations — out of local rivers, after a low flow advisory was issued.

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) suspended 73 licenses to temporarily divert water (TDLs) from the Athabasca, Peace, and Wabasca rivers on July 24, after unusually dry weather caused water to fall to at or below healthy maintenance levels. Now, scientists are saying this could become a regular issue for Alberta’s tar sands industry.

Tar sands mining is a type of surface mining in which the top layer of organic matter — trees and plants — is scrapped off, and heavy crude oil is filtered from the sand and clay below. Three barrels of water are needed for every barrel of oil extracted from the tar sands, according to Friends of the Earth.

“More than 90 percent of this water, 400 million gallons per day, ends up as toxic waste dumped in massive pools that contain carcinogenic substances like cyanide,” the group says. Processing the oil from tar sands is incredibly carbon-intensive, and because of tar sands, the energy sector has become Canada’s biggest source of greenhouse gases.

As global warming worsens, some regions, including Alberta, can expect more and more dry summers, scientists say.

“This is absolutely a preview of the future,” Simon Dowell, a climate scientist at the University of British Columbia, told ThinkProgress.

This is a reminder that even the fossil fuel industry has to be worried about the impacts of climate change

Earlier snow melt and drier conditions due to climate change are “exactly what all the models predict,” he said. In fact, the AER suspensions came the same week a paper Dowell co-authored was accepted for publication. In the paper, Dowell and lead author Doris Leong found that, by mid-century, there could be two-month interruptions in tar sands development due to lack of water.

Four counties in Alberta have declared a state of “agricultural disaster” due to drought this summer, the CBC reports. And with the record-breaking El Niño event, it’s expected that western Canada will continue its dry spell at least through this winter, Dowell said.

Some studies have predicted that climate change could increase the likelihood of severe El Niños, a phenomenon that, like climate change, can exacerbate extreme weather events in some parts of the world.

This spring, a group of more than 100 U.S. and Canadian scientists banded together against the continued development of the Alberta tar sands, saying it is “incompatible” with limiting climate change.

“It is somewhat ironic,” Dowell said. “This is a reminder that even the fossil fuel industry has to be worried about the impacts of climate change.”

For now, the water use restrictions will not end operations for all the affected companies, as many have stored water or alternative sources.

“The AER encourages industry to develop their own contingency plans to minimize the impacts that low-flow has on their energy operations. For example, operators may have previously stored water from the source to a reservoir on their site, and when water restrictions are in place, they can divert water from a reservoir,” Jordan Fitzgerald, an AER spokesman, told ThinkProgress by email.

The current restrictions are in effect only in the Upper Athabasca Basin, in northern Alberta, but operators elsewhere in the province are also being urged to conserve.

“The AER is also encouraging oil and gas operators to voluntarily reduce their water consumption in areas with no mandatory restrictions but with streamflows lower than normal,” Fitzgerald said.

Unfortunately for the tar sands industry, low flows might actually be the new normal.

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AlbertaAlberta Energy RegulatorDroughtGasOilshortagesWater

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Exporting Oil Overseas Would Come At A Huge Environmental Cost, Report Finds

Oil exports have been a major topic of discussion in recent months, as the United States has relaxed and considered lifting its long-standing ban on exporting oil to other nations. But a new report outlines exactly how exporting oil overseas would impact the country’s environment, not just in terms of increased carbon emissions but also in terms of the risks posed by transportation and changing land use.

The report, published Friday by the Center for American Progress (CAP), lays out the environmental reasons why Congress, which is expected to vote on a bill to lift the oil export ban once it returns to session next month, should seriously examine the environmental downfalls of oil exports.

“A hasty decision to outsource U.S. refinery capacity might boost oil company profits, but it would also carry a high environmental price tag and create uncertainty for consumers,” Matt Lee-Ashley, director of the Public Lands Project at CAP and co-author of the report said in a statement. “Congress should carefully weigh the full costs and risks of outsourcing American oil.”

The ban on oil exports was instituted by Congress in the 1970s. At that time, lawmakers wanted to save the United States’ reserves of oil, rather than import them overseas. Now, however, as oil production in the U.S. has increased, oil companies and lawmakers see economic potential in foreign markets.

But, as the report notes, that potential would come at a cost, including losing a major amount of land to oil production. The studies CAP analyzed predicted that oil production will increase if the crude oil export ban was lifted. These studies and data showed that an average of 26,385 new oil wells would be drilled in the U.S. each year between 2016 and 2030 if the ban is lifted — 7,600 more wells than would be drilled each year if the ban wasn’t lifted. According to the CAP report, this development means that about 137 square miles of land would be turned over to oil development each year — an area that’s larger than Utah’s Arches National Park.

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CREDIT: Center for American Progress

The report also outlined the climate consequences of lifting the ban. If the ban is lifted and the United States increases its oil production by 3.3 million barrels per day between 2015 and 2035 — an estimate that’s on the high end of predictions — burning that oil will release more than 515 million metric tons of carbon pollution every year. According to the report, that’s the same as adding 108 million passenger cars to the road or building an additional 135 coal-fired power plants. The report notes that estimates for oil consumption aren’t certain, but that if oil prices do drop after the ban is lifted, that will likely lead to an increase in consumption.

Shipping the oil also creates a major risk. The report states that the oil production that would occur after the ban is lifted would mostly involve light, sweet crude from North Dakota’s Bakken region — a type of oil that’s extremely volatile, making it among the riskiest to transport, especially via train. If higher estimates for new oil production do pan out, the 3.3 million barrels of oil produced each day would be enough to fill 947 oil tankers each year.

“The environmental impacts of increasing U.S. oil exports can affect the global environment, as well,” the report states. “Outsourcing U.S. refining capacity to countries with weaker environmental safeguards, for example, could result in additional air and water pollution in those countries and globally. In addition, if increased U.S. crude oil exports indeed lower international oil prices, as oil producers argue, these lower prices would disincentivize or slow the transition to cleaner and renewable fuel supplies around the world.”

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Obama Administration Proposes First-Ever Protections For Recreation Lands Near Moab, Utah

A long-anticipated management plan for national public lands near Moab, Utah, unveiled last Friday by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), is being hailed by outdoor recreation and conservation leaders for its landmark protections of the area’s iconic slickrock trails and backcountry experiences.

The so-called “master leasing plan,” or MLP, officially published in the Federal Register on Friday, is a new Obama administration policy tool that aims to reduce the environmental impacts and conflicts associated with resource extraction on public lands, such as oil and gas drilling and potash mining.

The draft plan, which covers upwards of one million acres, prohibits development or surface disturbance on almost 500,000 acres. Under the plan, new oil and gas drilling would be prohibited on 145,000 acres of land, while surface occupancy would be restricted on another 306,000 acres. Close to one-quarter of the planning area already open to leasing would not be affected. The plan further provides strong protections for the famous Arches and Canyonlands National Parks by closing off mineral leasing and development on adjacent BLM lands, as well as prohibiting future development or surface occupancy at Fisher Towers, Porcupine Rim, Six-Shooter, and Goldbar Canyon.

In releasing the plan, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell argued that the proposal takes a balanced approach to development and conservation in one of the most treasured areas of the American Southwest.

“Moab has some of the most iconic scenery on the Colorado Plateau, but it is also rich with energy resources, so we need to take a landscape-level approach to minimize potential resource conflicts,” said Jewell. “As the first Master Leasing Plan in Utah, this collaborative planning process should serve as a model for how communities can work together to balance development with protecting world-class environmental, cultural and recreational resources.”

Moab is known as a world-class destination for outdoor recreation enthusiasts. Under the preferred alternative of the plan, recreation in the area would generate $761 million in economic impact to the state and support 1,086 jobs. Oil and gas development, however, would support only 171 jobs and generate $365 million in economic impact. Outdoor recreation is major revenue source for the State of Utah, contributing $5.8 million annually to the state economy. Tourism in the State, bolstered by outdoor recreational opportunities, supports more than 124,000 jobs with visitors spending over $6.5 billion annually.

“About two million visitors each year enjoy a wide variety of recreation experiences within the Moab MLP area such as biking, climbing, and ATV use,” said Jason Keith of Public Land Solutions, a non-profit focused on comprehensive recreation planning. “The BLM’s MLP strikes a much better balance between oil and gas development and the protection of our recreation economy. … Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has created a national model here in Moab showing how we can work together and find win-win solutions for our public lands.”

The Obama administration developed the MLP model in 2010 in response to a national controversy that erupted after the administration of President George W. Bush proposed to allow oil and gas drilling on pristine and sensitive lands near Utah national parks. President Obama’s first Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, halted the 77 leases that had been issued and asked then-Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes to lead an effort to modernize and reform oil and gas leasing on America’s public lands.

The Moab MLP is one of the first high-level tests of the Obama Administration leasing reform efforts. As illustrated in a video released by the Center for American Progress last year, the Moab MLP is expected to serve as a model for balancing competing interests, including development, conservation, and recreation, on public lands.

“The draft Moab Master Leasing Plan is a significant step toward better BLM management of oil, gas and other minerals in the heart of Utah’s red rock country,” said Stephen Bloch, Legal Director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. “The public and local communities will know that many of southeastern Utah’s stunningly beautiful canyons and mesas won’t be marred by the sight and sound of drill rigs and pump jacks.”

The draft Moab MLP is one of a dozen MLPs for Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah already complete or underway. To date, the Interior Department has leased 34 million acres of public lands to oil and gas companies and 6,000 drilling permits — the equivalent of almost two years of drilling at the industry’s current pace.

The Interior Department will take public comment on the draft Moab MLP until November 19, 2015.

Nidhi Thakar is the Deputy Director of the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress. You can follow her on Twitter at @NidhiJThakar.

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As The British Government Pushes Fracking, Locals Push Back

The British government has made no secret of its support for fracking.

Last year, it opened up bidding for fracking licenses on nearly half the country’s total land area. Now, as those licenses are starting to be issued, the government has warned local councils that applications must be considered in “swift process.”

But anti-fracking activism in Britain has only grown. One county already rejected a permit application this month, setting up a battle royale between national government interests and local self-determination.

“The government position seems to be incredibly out of touch with public opinion for shale gas,” Ebony Johnson, the founder of Frack Free Lancashire, told ThinkProgress. “There is no support — or very, very little support — for shale gas in the area that I live in.”

The government position seems to be incredibly out of touch with public opinion for shale gas

Lancashire County is in northern England, just north of Manchester. In June, the council rejected a permit application from Cuadrilla, a company that intends to explore for oil and gas resources in the area.

More than 90,000 people petitioned the council to reject the application, Johnson said. Frack Free Lancashire, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth all campaigned heavily against the permit.

But Cuadrilla has already announced that it will appeal the permit, likely on the grounds that the council did not properly consider the issues it is allowed to look at.

“The council is only allowed to look at specific aspects with regard to planning: the use of the land, light pollution, air pollution, land use, ecology to a certain extent — whether it is near a site with special scientific interest or natural beauty,” Johnson said. “Waste produced by the site could not be taken into account.”

In other words, the decision cannot be a referendum on whether fracking is safe or necessary. Water contamination — which has been a problem in the United States, Johnson noted — is not an acceptable consideration. Wastewater from fracking — short form for hydraulic fracturing — has been a growing concern in the United States. During the fracking process, large amounts of chemical-laced water are pumped at high pressure into shale rock to loosen oil and gas deposits. The water cannot easily be reused, and is often pumped into underground disposal wells, risking contamination if the wells are not properly lined and raising concerns about earthquakes.

A government spokesperson, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, confirmed that the councils have a narrow area of discretion in the approval process.

“We’re telling councils they should make their decision on planning issues,” the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) spokesman told ThinkProgress. Councils should not, he said, be making decisions about whether the government’s environmental agency is sufficiently engaged on the issue. In any case, there is “no evidence that, when properly, regulated” shale gas development is an environmental hazard, he said.

He disagreed with the characterization that the directive issued earlier this month was in reaction to any particular situation or was out of the ordinary. The directive gives councils 16 weeks to consider permit applications. An announcement by the DECC said applications will be “fast-tracked through a new, dedicated planning process,” but according to the spokesman, there is no change in policy for the councils.

“It’s a statutory time frame, that they are expected to meet for all planning decisions,” he said. “It already exists — it’s not something that we just pulled out of nowhere.”

In the United States, fracking has been tied to methane leaks, methane explosions, earthquakes, and water contamination.

Fracking has also been tied to earthquakes in Britain. Cuadrilla, the same company that is appealing Lancashire’s decision, admitted that its oil and gas activities caused seismic activity at another site in 2011.

According to Preston Councillor John Swindell’s, Lancashire’s councilmembers had many general objections to fracking in their district, although none of those reasons could be considered. Ultimately, the rejection came down to a simple planning issue: too many trucks on the county’s small roads.

Being unable to consider the greater environmental issues is “absolutely” a problem, Swindells told ThinkProgress. “It’s one of the key issues,” he said. For him, the main concerns are climate change and the water table, neither of which fall under the planning rubric.

Shale is something the government supports — and quite strongly supports

The new directive from the DECC just adds another layer to the county councils’ responsibilities. In the case of the Lancashire permit, a process which lasted roughly 12 months, Swindells said the delays were largely due to requests from Cuadrilla to respond to community concerns. It was also natural that it would take longer than average, because it was the first process of its kind, Swindells said. But the directive makes it clear that councils that don’t respond quickly could have the decision taken away entirely.

The question on everyone’s mind now seems to be whether — and for how long — local groups will continue to be able to self-determine. For instance, Cuadrilla’s appeal could go to a national planning board, which might overthrow the local decision.

Going forward, Swindells said, “I think they will make it very difficult to turn [applications] down.”

And it’s clear that the national government is pushing shale development. Its official policy statement says “there is a national need to explore and develop our shale gas and oil resources in a safe, sustainable and timely way.” Great Britain currently imports 45 percent of its gas — an amount that is expected to go up to 75 percent by 2030 without domestic shale development, according to official estimates.

“Shale is something the government supports — and quite strongly supports,” the DECC spokesman told ThinkProgress.

Who, exactly, is behind this support is another question. Anti-fracking advocates have criticized the government for being influenced by oil and gas interests. And more specifically, the conservative (Tory) government has been called out for issuing fracking licenses only in the Labour-controlled north. Last year, the father-in-law of a Conservative minister — and an oil and gas lobbyist — suggested fracking should happen only in the northeast, because it has “large and uninhabited and desolate areas.”

When 27 locations were offered in the first tranche of licenses this week, they were clustered in the north and east of the country, including additional sites in Lancashire and neighboring Yorkshire.

“A lot of ministers have said they will support shale gas but not in their own community,” Frack Free Lancashire’s Johnson told ThinkProgress. She predicted that the new licenses will not result in rubber-stamped permits from the local councils. “There is already massive opposition in Lancashire and Yorkshire.”

Councillor Swindells, though, was not so confident.

“I think it’s almost inevitable,” he said. “If it’s the will of the national government to do that, they will force it through one way or another.”

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BritainDrillingFrack FreeFrackingGasLancashireOilUKUnited Kingdom

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Hottest Month On Record Portends Global Warming Speed Up

Last month was not just the hottest July on record. Since July is “the warmest month of the year globally,” NOAA’s latest monthly State of the Climate Report, notes that July 2015 “was also the highest among all 1627 months in the record that began in January 1880.”

There never was any slow-down in surface temperature warming, and indeed the NOAA report confirms that 2015 is all but certain to crush previous global temperature records. That’s especially likely since the strong underlying global warming trend is being boosted by an emerging “Godzilla El Niño,” as a NASA oceanographer put it.

Here are some of the other records NOAA identifies for “combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces” in the dataset for the month of June from the years 1880 to 2015:

Hottest first seven months of any year “at 0.85°C (1.53°F) above the 20th century average, surpassing the previous record set in 2010 by 0.09°C (0.16°F).”
“Austria recorded its hottest July since national records began in 1767.”
“A high pressure dome over the Middle East brought what may be one of the most extreme heat indices ever recorded in the world on July 31st … a heat index of 74°C (165°F).”

It was especially hot for the 6 billion of us up here in the northern hemisphere, where the first seven months of 2015 were a remarkable 0.3°F warmer than the first seven months of any year on record — and nearly a half degree Fahrenheit warmer than any year before 2007:

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2014 was the hottest year on record. 2015 will easily top that. And it is entirely possible 2016 could beat 2015, as discussed here. The long-awaited speed up in global warming appears to starting now.

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Climate Change

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Trump Says Keystone XL Pipeline Would Have ‘No Impact’ On The Environment

No leaks, no spills, no impact on climate change.

The Keystone XL pipeline would have “no impact” on the environment if it were approved and built, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Tuesday. For that reason, the billionaire said he would approve the controversial project “immediately” if elected president.

If I am elected President I will immediately approve the Keystone XL pipeline. No impact on environment & lots of jobs for U.S.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 18, 2015

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline is a 1,179-mile extension to the Keystone Pipeline System, and it would bring tar sands crude oil from Canada down to refineries on the Gulf coast. The project has been stalled for years, as President Obama has been reluctant to approve it partially due to environmental concerns.

Though there’s been fierce debate over how large the proposed pipeline’s environmental impact would be, it’s rare to hear someone say Keystone XL would have no environmental impact at all. Even the U.S. State Department said that, while there would not be a major impact on climate change, the pipeline would likely experience spills in the course of its lifetime.

The risk of an oil spill from Keystone XL is particularly concerning to environmentalists because of the type of oil involved. Tar sands oil is more difficult to clean up than conventional crude because, when it spills into water, it does not float. Instead, it gradually sinks, making normal cleanup techniques and equipment of little use. This is partially what made the 2010 Enbridge oil spill so difficult to clean up.

Environmentalists also decry tar sands oil extraction because of its carbon intensity. The extraction process causes more greenhouse gas emissions than other types of oil. This is likely not an issue for Donald Trump, however, as he does not think greenhouses gases cause climate change.

Trump is also personally invested in the company seeking to build Keystone XL. According to his mandatory financial disclosures, he holds at least $250,000 in TransCanada Pipelines. His stock holdings also include numerous other fossil fuel companies that could benefit from the pipeline’s approval and subsequent construction.

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Donald TrumpKeystone XLTar Sands

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What’s Behind The Spike In Earthquake Activity Oklahoma Has Seen This Year?

A little over eight months into the year, Oklahoma has broken a new yearly record for earthquakes.

The state recorded its 587th earthquake of 3.0 magnitude or higher early this week, breaking the previous record of 585. That record was set for all of 2014, meaning that Oklahoma has now had more 3.0 magnitude or higher earthquakes so far in 2015 than it did in all of 2014. So far this year, E&E News reports, Oklahoma’s averaged 2.5 quakes each day, a rate that, if it continues, means the state could see more than 912 earthquakes by the end of this year.

Oklahoma has also experienced 21 4.0 magnitude or greater earthquakes so far this year — an increase over last year, which saw 14.

Last year, Oklahoma was the most seismically active state in the lower 48 U.S. states. Its 585 quakes were a major spike from the year before, which saw around 100 earthquakes. In 2014, the state had already surpassed its 2013 record by April.

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CREDIT: OKLAHOMA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

Oil and gas activity is seen as a suspect for this surge in earthquake activity, both in Oklahoma and in other oil- and gas-heavy states that have experienced swarms of earthquakes. From 1991 to 2008, Oklahoma experienced no more than three 3.0 or higher earthquakes a year. Then, in 2009, earthquake activity started to increase in the state — and judging by the records broken in 2014 and 2015, it hasn’t stopped. That increase in earthquakes since 2009 has been tied to hydraulic fracturing operations in the state — specifically, the injection of fracking wastewater into deep, underground wells. If those wells are close enough to fault lines, the activity can trigger the line to slip, which can cause an earthquake.

“As long as you keep injecting wastewater along that fault zone, according to my calculations, you’re going to continue to have earthquakes,” Arthur F. McGarr, chief of the induced seismicity project at the federal Earthquake Science Center in California, told the New York Times in April.

The injection of fracking wastewater has been confirmed as a possible earthquake trigger by the U.S. Geological Survey, and according to the agency, earthquakes linked to fracking are on the rise in the U.S.

“These earthquakes are occurring at a higher rate than ever before and pose a much greater risk to people living nearby,” Mark Petersen, the USGS National Seismic Hazard Modeling Project chief, said in a statement in April. “The USGS is developing methods that overcome the challenges in assessing seismic hazards in these regions in order to support decisions that help keep communities safe from ground shaking.”

Other states, including Texas and Ohio, have also linked earthquakes to wastewater injection. The process of fracking itself — rather than the injection of wastewater — has also been singled out as a possible earthquake inducer: scientists linked a series of earthquakes in Ohio to fracking in January.

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The post What’s Behind The Spike In Earthquake Activity Oklahoma Has Seen This Year? appeared first on ThinkProgress.

How The EPA And New York Times Are Getting Methane All Wrong

Pretty much every recent news article you’ve read about the global warming impact of methane compared to carbon dioxide is wrong. Embarrassingly, everyone from the Environmental Protection Agency itself to the New York Times and Washington Post and Wall Street Journal continue to use lowball numbers that are wrong and outdated. In fact, as we’ll see, they are doubly outdated.

Here, for instance, is the New York Times from Tuesday: “Methane, which leaks from oil and gas wells, accounts for just 9 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas pollution — but it is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so even small amounts of it can have a big impact on global warming.”

Here is the EPA’s own news release from Tuesday on its on its proposed new methane rule: “Methane, the key constituent of natural gas, is a potent GHG with a global warming potential more than 25 times greater than that of carbon dioxide.”

In fact, two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in its definitive Fifth Assessment of the scientific literature (big PDF here) that methane is 34 times stronger a heat-trapping gas than CO2 over a 100-year time scale, so its long-term global-warming potential (GWP) is 34. That is a nearly 40 percent increase from the IPCC’s previous estimate of 25.

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The global-warming potential of methane compared to CO2 over 20 years and 100 years, with and without climate-carbon feedbacks (cc fb). Via IPCC.

If you think that the 20-year GWP (86) might actually be more relevant in a world where we are only decades away from crossing points of no return for key climate impacts, you aren’t alone.

The fact is the 100-year potential has been used in part because scientists have been focused on the long-term warming impact — and the year 2100 is an endpoint for much analysis. But after ignoring the scientists for 25 years, the world really needs to worry that we are likely to cross dangerous tipping points long before then, including the irreversible loss of enough ice on Greenland and Antarctica to raise sea levels perhaps 40 feet or more.

And although the 100-year GWP is by far the most widely used, the IPCC itself drops this mini-bombshell in their 2013 report:

There is no scientific argument for selecting 100 years compared with other choices (Fuglestvedt et al., 2003; Shine, 2009). The choice of time horizon is a value judgement since it depends on the relative weight assigned to effects at different times.

Again, there is no scientific reason to pick the 100-year GWP over the 20-year GWP. The EPA and media outlets should in fact make clear they are talking about the 100-year GWP, and the best media coverage should give the 20-year GWP, since that number is increasingly relevant for humanity.

Returning to the main point, the EPA and New York Times and most other major media outlets are using the wrong global warming potential — one that could easily be fact-checked. How easily? Just Google “global warming potential.” The Wikipedia entry pops up first and in the opening paragraph explains “In the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, methane has a lifetime of 12.4 years and with climate-carbon feedbacks a global warming potential of 86 over 20 years and 34 over 100 years in response to emissions.”

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Lebron James.

CREDIT: Scott Meivogel / Shutterstock.com

The New York Times statement that methane is “over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide” uses a figure that is nearly twenty years out of date. And, no, the use of the word “over” doesn’t make their statement defensible any more than if they had written, “basketball superstar Lebron James is over 5 feet tall.”

The EPA use of “more than 25 times” is closer, but would still be like writing, “Lebron James is over 6 feet tall.” He is, in fact, 6 feet 8 inches. Worse, not only has the EPA also been using the two-decade old figure of 20 until recently, they actually know that 25 is the wrong number.

As of July, EPA’s own web page “Understanding Global Warming Potentials,” stated, “Methane (CH4) is estimated to have a GWP of 28-36 over 100 years.” You can then click on a link for the next sentence, “(Learn why EPA’s U.S. Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks uses a different value.)” There you will learn:

The EPA considers the GWP estimates presented in the most recent IPCC scientific assessment to reflect the state of the science. In science communications, the EPA will refer to the most recent GWPs. The GWPs listed above are from the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, published in 2014.

Oops. I guess EPA doesn’t consider Tuesday’s news release OR the accompanying “fact sheet” OR its “Proposed Rule” that sets new methane standards for “new and modified sources in the oil and gas industry” to be “science communications” — since every single one of those EPA publications uses “25.”

EPA explains its GHG inventory uses “25” because the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) “guidelines now require the use of the GWP values for the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, published in 2007.” That is pretty strange of the UNFCCC — but no excuse for EPA to use a number it knows is wrong in any other venue.

Sadly, the EPA’s mistake now propagates throughout the media.

Washington Post: “As a greenhouse gas, methane is 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere.”
USA Today: “Methane — a potent greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping atmospheric heat — is a contributor to global warming.”
Wall Street Journal: “Methane has a warming effect on the planet more than 20 times greater than carbon dioxide, according to the EPA.”

Oops! And “double oops” for the Wall Street Journal. Memo to media: Next time, check Wikipedia. Or the top climate scientists on the planet.

The bottom line is that methane is a superpotent greenhouse gas — especially over the medium-term, a timeframe of growing concern to scientists. The media needs to start getting its facts straight, especially since we know that methane leaks from the entire natural gas lifecycle from fracking to combustion significantly undercut or eliminate any meaningful climate benefit from the fracking boom (see my 2014 post “By The Time Natural Gas Has A Net Climate Benefit You’ll Likely Be Dead And The Climate Ruined”).

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The post How The EPA And New York Times Are Getting Methane All Wrong appeared first on ThinkProgress.