Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 85

Want To Know How Sea Level Rise Will Impact Your Hometown? There’s A Map For That

If you want to know whether your city has the potential to be underwater due to rising sea levels, there’s now a map for that.

In conjunction with research published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Climate Central launched ‘Mapping Choices,’ an interactive tool that lets users compare sea level rise in different cities based on various carbon scenarios, from aggressive carbon cuts to unchecked pollution.

This is a story that can have different endings, and the endings depend on what we do

“I think we read a lot of projections about future temperature increases or impact, but it can be hard to understand what they really mean,” Ben Strauss, vice president for sea level and climate impacts at Climate Central and lead author of the study, told ThinkProgress. “We wanted to do a research project that would literally give people a picture, or a map, of the different outcomes that we could see. This is a story that can have different endings, and the endings depend on what we do.”

If left unchecked, carbon pollution could lead to between 14 and 33 feet of long-term global sea level rise, the study found. That magnitude of sea level rise would threaten to submerge land that is currently home to between 20 and 31 million Americans, including at least 20 major U.S. cities with more than 100,000 residents. With aggressive carbon cuts, the study found, half of these cities could be spared from rising seas — but major cities like New Orleans and Miami are likely to be permanently threatened by rising sea level even with aggressive action on climate change.

In addition to looking at sea level rise, the study looked at “lock-in dates” for long term sea level rise — dates beyond which the effect of carbon emissions doom the cities to inundation. Under a high-carbon pathway (RCP 8.5), a quarter of Boston would be “locked-in” to long term sea level rise around 2045, and New York City would have until 2095 — but cities like Miami, New Orleans, and Charleston have already passed their lock-in date.

“Many cities have features that depend on our energy path, but some appear to be already lost,” Strauss said. “It is hard to imagine how we can defend South Florida in the long run. It is hard to imagine how we can defend New Orleans in the long run.”

To understand how carbon emissions will impact sea level rise, the researchers essentially combined two well-established lines of research — one relating to carbon emissions and global warming, and another relating warming to long term sea level rise. After combining those lines of research in what Strauss referred to as a “statistically appropriate way,” the researchers were able to build a relationship between how much carbon is emitted into the atmosphere and how much sea levels can be expected to rise. The researchers then applied that relationship to coastal topography maps, and, using census data and information about historic high tide lines, mapped the areas that would be inundated, under different carbon emission scenarios, in the future.

Will we preserve and protect our great coastal cities, or will we not? The answer depends on how much carbon we put in the atmosphere

The time frame on inundation, Strauss explained, is long term.

“The sea levels that we’re projecting could, with a small chance, occur as soon as 2200, but they might take many more years to unfold,” he said.

But Strauss underscored the idea that even though sea level rise could take centuries to reach catastrophic levels, the choices society makes in the coming decades will have a large impact on just how high the global waters will go.

“We’re doing our best to make this challenge concrete by showing you what it means for your zip code, your city, the places you care about, and explaining why the consequences may take a long time to unfold,” Strauss said. “Some of America’s most culturally important cities are at stake. Not just Miami and New Orleans, but New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston. Will we preserve and protect our great coastal cities, or will we not? The answer depends on how much carbon we put in the atmosphere.”

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Climate ChangeSea Level Rise

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Parents And Grandparents Call For Climate Action: ‘We Consider It Our Moral Obligation’

Protecting the planet for future generations has become a near-universal reason — at least among those who accept climate science — to act on climate change. Noted climate scientist James Hansen has said that the U.S. government’s inaction on climate change violates “the fundamental rights of…future generations,” and President Obama said in January that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.”

It’s in that spirit that 14 organizations from around the world announced the launch of Our Kids’ Climate, a group that’s calling on world leaders to act on climate for the sake of kids’ futures. The group, launched Tuesday, is focusing its efforts on the Paris climate talks in December. Members plan to deliver a petition — which so far has garnered nearly 4,000 signatures — to world leaders during the conference “demand[ing] actions strong enough to protect the children we love from catastrophic climate change.” The petition, which organizers say is also addressed towards local and state leaders, calls for international commitments to “keep global temperature rise at safe levels” and, ideally, “a world powered by 100 percent clean energy with net zero greenhouse gas emissions.”

The goal of the organization is to connect parents and grandparents who want to join the fight against climate change, Frida Berry Eklund of Sweden’s pro-climate action group Parents Roar said on a press call Tuesday.

“When I became a parent, the threat of catastrophic climate change became much more real to me,” Eklund said. During the 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen, the voices of parents and grandparents weren’t as loud as they should have been, she said. This year, Our Kids’ Climate wants to make sure parents and grandparents are heard: the group is planning a march for climate action in Paris during the talks.

Parents wanting the best future possible for their children isn’t surprising, but pushing for climate action in order to safeguard kids’ futures makes sense in more ways than one. A 2013 study from Unicef found that children around the world — especially those in poor countries — will be hit with some of the worst impacts of climate change. According to Unicef, 25 million more children won’t get enough to eat due to climate change by 2030, and they’ll be among the most vulnerable when faced with increased incidence of heatwaves.

“Children’s little bodies are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change,” said Molly Rauch, public health policy director, Moms Clean Air Force. Children’s lungs aren’t yet done growing, she said, which makes them even more vulnerable to smog and other pollutants, and they also take more breaths per minute than adults do. Diarrheal diseases, which are among the leading causes of death in children worldwide, could also increase in incidence as the planet warms. And climate change’s threat to children isn’t a distant one — overall, Rauch said, 88 percent of the deaths caused by climate change in the year 2000 were among children.

“Addressing climate change is an incredible opportunity to give our children not just safe world for the future, but also a world that keeps them healthy today,” she said. “We consider it our moral obligation to take action.”

As parents and grandparents fight for climate action on behalf of their kids, children and young adults themselves have also joined the fray. Twenty young people sued the federal government in August, arguing that inaction on climate change violates their fundamental rights. And youth climate movements have emerged as a strong voice in international climate talks, and the movement to divest from fossil fuel funds has been largely driven by students on college campuses.

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Climate ActionClimate Change

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Alaska Governor Wants To Drill In The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to Pay For Climate Programs

Climate change is already hitting Alaska hard — the state has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the country, and those warming temperatures are driving a loss of sea ice, melting of permafrost, and worsening fire season. Already, the majority of Alaska’s native villages are threatened by erosion and flooding, and a handful have made serious plans to relocate.

We have villages that are washing away because of changes in the climate

But adapting to the impacts of climate change isn’t cheap — in addition to part of the $1 billion National Disaster Resilience Competition fund that Alaska is hoping to tap into, the state is also requesting $162.4 million in relief for villages vulnerable to climate change.

To help finance its adaptation to climate change — including programs to relocate native villages — Alaska’s governor Bill Walker (I) told BBC News that the state needs to “urgently” drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

“We are in a significant fiscal challenge. We have villages that are washing away because of changes in the climate,” Walker told BBC News.

[image error]

This aerial photo shows the island village of Kivalina, an Alaska Native community of 400 people already receding into the ocean as a result of rising sea levels.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

When asked if extra drilling would help pay for adapting to these impacts, Walker responded “absolutely,” telling the BBC reporter that the state should proceed “in a responsible way as we have in the past.” Walker argued that a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should be opened up to drilling, in order to increase the state’s revenue.

“This isn’t something we can put off for 10-20 years,” Walker said. “We have to begin this process now — it’s an absolute urgency for Alaska.”

Plummeting oil prices have already caused financial troubles for the state, with oil-and-gas taxes and revenues accounting for just 75 percent of the state’s unrestricted budgets, down from nearly 90 percent in 2014. In 2014, total petroleum revenues for the state — including property and production taxes, royalties, rent, and interest payments — reached $5.7 billion, accounting for nearly a third of all state revenues. Alaska has neither an income tax nor a sales tax, forcing the state to lean heavily on petroleum revenues to fund state programs.

With the price of oil dropping — and Shell pulling out of its drilling operation in the Chukchi Sea — Alaska has been forced to look for new drilling projects to boost its sinking petroleum revenues. An appealing location for supporters of Alaskan drilling is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), an area of about 19 million acres located in Alaska’s North Slope region.

…in order to limit global warming to 2 °C, all of the Arctic’s remaining oil and gas reserves must remain in the ground

In April, President Obama formally sent a letter to Congress asking that 12.28 million acres of ANWR be designated as wilderness — a move that was met with resistance from Alaskan politicians, because while ANWR is home to some of the most diverse wildlife in the Arctic, it also sits atop vast stores of oil. The Coastal Plain of ANWR alone could contain as much as 16 billion recoverable barrels of oil. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has called opening up ANWR to drilling a “top priority.”

Environmentalists worry that opening ANWR to drilling could have catastrophic impacts for the environment and native communities that depend on the Refuge’s wildlife. ANWR’s Coastal Plain provides crucial calving habitat for the Porcupine caribou, an animal that the Gwich’in people — an indigenous group that has lived on the land from northeastern Alaska to the Canadian Yukon for thousands of years — heavily depend on for food security. If ANWR is opened to drilling, studies have suggested that the Porcupine caribou’s ability to safely birth and raise their young could be impacted.

Beyond local ecosystems and communities, climate scientists warn that drilling in the Arctic could have serious consequences for climate change — a study published in Nature last January found that in order to limit global warming to 2°C, all of the Arctic’s remaining oil and gas reserves must remain in the ground. So even if opening up new drilling projects would boost Alaska’s revenue in the short term, it’s likely that the decision would only exacerbate the adverse impacts of climate change over the long run.

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Déjà Vu Again: Hot September Drives 2015 To Hottest Year On Record

Once again, it’s the hottest year on record by far through last month, NASA reports. We’re running out of headlines for this repetitive monthly warm up, but with the recent death of the legendary Yogi Berra, one of his classic lines comes to mind, “It’s like deja-vu, all over again.”

Last month was second only to 2014 for hottest September in the NASA dataset.

With the long-term warming trend caused by human activity boosted by the short-term warming caused by the strongest El Niño since the big one of 1997-1998 — and with the current month, October, trending very warm — it’s now a better than 99 percent chance 2015 will be the hottest calendar year on record.

But the NASA data makes clear we’ve already blown past the “hottest 12 months” on record. Here’s the 12-month moving average since 1880 (via Greg Laden):

[image error]

Once again, the NASA data highlights the fact there has been no actual slowdown in warming. Indeed the March study, “Near-term acceleration in the rate of temperature change” demonstrates the only “pause” has been in the long-expected speed-up of global warming. The rate of surface warming should have accelerated in the past decade, rather than stay constant.

For those wondering how calendar year 2015 (through September) stacks up against earlier years, climate expert Dr. John Abraham amended this NASA chart:

[image error]

No doubt 2015 will continue warming because of rising temperatures in the east-central tropical Pacific associated with the current El Niño (see here). So 2016 could well top 2015.

And in fact, the United Kingdom’s Met Office points out that broader trends in the oceans “are consistent with a return of rapid warming in the near term.” The long-awaited speed-up in global temperatures is here.

This post has been updated.

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Climate Change

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7 Tough Questions Progressives Want Answered At The Democratic Presidential Debate

The last two presidential debates have basically been exercises in outrage for progressives. Save for the moment Carly Fiorina smacked down Donald Trump’s sexism, the Republican events were the stuff of liberal nightmares — defenses of the Iraq War, expressions of admiration for Kim Davis, a botched discussion of climate change, and silence on racial injustice.

So there’s likely some relief among progressives that Tuesday’s presidential debate will be between Democratic candidates whose worldviews might align closer to theirs. But that doesn’t mean the candidates will have it easy. There are key distinctions the Democratic candidates will need to make between themselves and their opponents — both on the Republican and Democratic side of the aisle — before voters make their choices.

In order to make those distinctions, ThinkProgress reached out to groups with progressive values on a slew of issues, ranging from gun violence to climate change, to find out what questions they hope the Democratic candidates will answer and why. Here are some of the responses we got.

1) “What do you think are the top three things the next president needs to do in order to make sure fewer families have to go through the pain that mine has?” – Erica Lafferty Smegielski, daughter of deceased Sandy Hook Elementary School principal Dawn Hochsprung.
[image error]

Frank Kulick, adjusts a display of wooden crosses, and a Jewish Star of David, representing the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, on his front lawn, Monday, Dec. 17, 2012, in Newtown, Conn.

CREDIT: AP Photo/David Goldman

This question was actually pointed out to ThinkProgress by Everytown For Gun Safety, a group advocating gun control. Erica asked it on CNN’s Facebook page when the network asked the public to provide questions to ask the Democratic candidates during the debate. Andy Parker, the father of on-air reporter Alison Parker who was killed by a gunman earlier this year, separately asked if candidates would work to require background checks for all gun sales.

“We want all the candidates, from all parties, to tell us what they will do to prevent the gun violence that kills 88 Americans every day and injures hundreds more,” Everytown spokesperson Stacey Radnor said.

2) “Will you engage in aggressive litigation against the fossil fuel industry’s conspiracy of climate denial, as the Clinton administration did against the tobacco industry?” – R.L. Miller, president of Climate Hawks Vote

In 1999, President Bill Clinton’s administration filed a Department of Justice lawsuit against major American tobacco companies, alleging they conspired to deliberately mislead the public about the health impacts of smoking. In 2006, the court found the tobacco companies guilty of fraud, conspiracy, and racketeering.

Now, similar allegations have been made against the fossil fuel industry — that they deliberately conspired to mislead the public about the impacts of human-caused climate change. The companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns of politicians who deny the science of human-caused warming and work actively to prevent climate action. At the same time, at least one company — Exxon — likely knew that climate change was a problem for 27 years.

“Evidence is overwhelming that Exxon in particular … knew about climate change in the ’70s and ’80s, but then engaged in a deliberate effort to cover up, confuse, and obfuscate the science because of the impact on its business model,” Miller said. “Climate change has already harmed Americans in ways too numerous to list; the companies that caused climate change, and caused the cover-up, should be held responsible.”

3) “What would you do to prevent the racially charged attacks on the right to vote?” – Sean McElwee, research associate at Demos
[image error]

Desiree Griffiths, 31, of Miami, holds up a sign saying “Black Lives Matter”, with the names of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, two black men recently killed by police, during a protest Friday, Dec. 5, 2014, in Miami. People are protesting nationwide against recent decisions not to prosecute white police officers involved in the killing of black men.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

In recent years, a number of states have passed measures that ostensibly make it harder to vote, either by self-interested gerrymandering, eliminating early voting, or requiring specific forms of identification at the polls. Though some courts have ruled these laws unlawful, the ones that do still exist tend to disproportionately discourage voting in minority communities.

“From the recent Alabama DMV closures to the wave of the voting restrictions after the court gutted the Voting Rights Act, the sanctity of the ballot remains uncertain,” McElwee said. “There is strong evidence that these attacks on the ballot are motivated not just by partisanship, but racial animus.”

McElwee also asked what candidates would do to bolster turnout among low-income people, people of color, and young people, noting that a mere 41.9 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2014 midterm election.

4) “When you step into office, will you commit … [to use] your authority to immediately end leasing of public fossil fuels in the U.S.?” – Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth Action

According to the International Energy Agency, two thirds of all proven fossil fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground to avoid catastrophic climate change. At the same time, the U.S. government still contracts with fossil fuel companies to allow them to extract coal, oil, and gas from public lands.

“[Countries] are going to need to make the choice to keep this carbon locked in the ground,” Pica said. ” A recent report by Friends of the Earth and the Center for Biological Diversity found that the U.S. could have more than 450 gigatons of CO2 under its public lands and waters. … A litmus test for climate leadership is the willingness to take on corporate polluters to keep fossil fuels in the ground in order to protect our climate.”

5) “What will you do to ensure that young people maintain access to critical healthcare services despite growing conservative attacks on birth control, abortion, and other services?” – MS Keifer, policy analyst at Advocates for Youth
[image error]

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) speaks at rally on Capitol Hill sponsored by Planned Parenthood

CREDIT: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Most if not all of the Democratic candidates have expressed support for Planned Parenthood in the wake of the Republican Congress’ attempt to defund it. But tougher than merely expressing support for the women’s health organization would be a question about how, specifically, the candidates plan to push back on those attempts and be successful.

“We wonder in what ways could a president be more demonstrative of their support for sexual health services in terms of money and legislation,” Keifer said.

6) “Will they work to eliminate all mandatory minimum drug sentences? And how would they allocate federal funds and specifically design programs to prevent recidivism?” – Zellie Imani, Black Lives Matter activist and New Jersey teacher

A key tenet of the Black Lives Matter movement is reforming the criminal justice system, which disproportionately punishes black Americans in a number of ways.

One of the ways this racial inequality manifests itself is via a disproportionately high rate of recidivism — or return to criminal activity — among African-American male youth. In addition, mandatory minimums — which require judges to impose severe penalties against those convicted of low-level drug crimes — has resulted in a disproportionate amount of jail time for black Americans.

“We would like to see a more restorative justice approach so that individuals who are charged don’t have to do mandatory sentences,” Imani said. “There are other solutions to correcting their behavior so they won’t get into this whole revolving door of the prison system.”

7) “What would your administration do to make sure young LGBT youth are getting education, not incarceration?” – Ian Palmquist, director of leadership programs for Equality Federation

Though the debate over LGBT equality has long focused on same-sex marriage, many advocates are hoping this next election season will tackle some other issues in the community — particularly what’s known as school pushout. Advocacy group reports over the years have found that LGBT youth and youth of color “not only face bullying and harassment from peers, but also harsh and disparate discipline from school staff, relatively higher levels of policing and surveillance, and blame for their own victimization.”

As a result of this, the drop-out rate for LGBT students is higher — and according to the Center for American Progress, making up a disproportionate percentage of the population in the juvenile justice system. New research has revealed some anti-bullying legislation can be effective.

“School push out is a crisis for LGBT youth and youth of color that has gotten far too little attention,” Palmquist said. “Candidates need to show an understanding of LGBT issues beyond marriage and nondiscrimination, including issues affecting marginalized populations like LGBT youth of color.”

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Climate Change Is Regressive. A Carbon Tax Doesn’t Have To Be.

Climate change is innately regressive.

The wealthiest Americans contribute the most to carbon pollution, and yet the poor suffer the brunt of the impacts. Low-income families are more likely to live near crowded highways and dirty power plants, and they are also the least equipped to deal with loss and damage from severe weather or shocks to the food system. This is a market distortion: the costs of pollution are not borne entirely by the polluters. Thus, while a gallon of gas may cost $2.45 at the pump, the price jumps to $6.25 when factoring in health and environmental damages, according to a recent study from Duke University. Who pays the extra $3.80? We all do, but the very poor bear a disproportionate share of the burden.

Lawmakers could remedy this injustice by forcing the price of fossil fuels to tell the truth about their actual cost. That means accounting for the social cost of carbon. Among economists and a small but growing number of conservatives, a carbon tax stands as the carbon-pricing policy par excellence: simple, elegant, and absent the hard limits on pollution that Republicans tend to resist. The dilemma is that, depending on how it’s crafted, a carbon tax could actually make economic inequality worse.

A carbon tax can be regressive, but it doesn’t have to be

The beauty of a carbon tax is that it discourages high-carbon behavior. If the cost of gasoline goes up, consumers are more likely to purchase a fuel-efficient vehicle. If the cost of electricity goes up, homeowners are more likely to put up solar panels or conserve energy. However, because we need energy to produce everything from TVs to hamburger buns, the increased cost of production will drive up the price of consumer goods or suppress wages. Either way, low-income families, who already spend a larger proportion of their income on transportation, groceries and utility bills, will be hit the hardest.

That’s not to say a carbon tax couldn’t be made to work for struggling families. With a revenue-neutral carbon tax, the federal government would return the proceeds to the taxpayers, and how lawmakers go about recycling the proceeds could make the difference between narrowing and widening the wealth gap. At an event sponsored by Resources for the Future, an environmental think tank, Dr. Roberton Williams said “The carbon tax by itself is regressive, but what you do with revenue is much more important. So, we can easily take a regressive policy and turn it progressive by how we use the revenue.”

Cutting the corporate tax would be efficient, but it would hurt low-income households

One way to return carbon tax revenue would be to cut the corporate income tax (“capital recycling”). Because a corporate income tax can discourage business investment, returning revenue to corporations could provide a powerful stimulus to the economy, more than other kinds of tax cuts. Unfortunately, most of the gains would go to the wealthiest Americans. Said Williams, “The case that is the best for the economy as a whole, capital tax recycling, is the worst for the middle class.” Think of it this way: If Bill Gates walks into a football stadium, every person in the stadium may be a million dollars richer on average, but that doesn’t translate into real wealth for anyone except for a single billionaire. The point is, distribution matters.

Cutting the the payroll tax (“labor recycling”) would be more equitable than cutting the corporate income tax, but even in this scenario the poorest Americans would be worse off than they would without a carbon tax. Writing in Resources magazine, Chad Stone, Chief Economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, notes, “A carbon tax should not make poor families poorer or push more people into poverty. Climate rebates should be designed to fully offset the impact of a carbon tax on the purchasing power of low- and moderate-income households.”

A lump-sum rebate is less efficient, but low- and middle-income families would be better off

So, what is a fairer way to return revenue from a carbon tax? Take the total accumulated revenue, divide it into 310 million equal shares, and mail a check to every American. This is what’s commonly known as “fee and dividend.” Said Williams, “The lump sum rebate — that just does an enormous amount for the bottom end. Again, because that flat dollar amount is a much bigger percentage amount for poorer people than it is for wealthy people.” The lump-sum rebate turns the Bill Gates-football stadium analogy on its head. With a rebate, the average wealth of stadium goers decreases, but most of the losses come from the pockets of a singular tech tycoon.

This graph shows the net effect on income of a revenue-neutral carbon tax of $30 per ton of CO2.

[image error]

CREDIT: Resources for the Future

As you can see, the lump-sum rebate is the only scenario in which those who have contributed the least to carbon pollution — low- and middle-income Americans — are actually better off. Because the wealthiest Americans bear more of the economic brunt, a rebate would have a redistributive effect, simultaneously delivering blows to carbon pollution and economic inequality.

Crafting fair and effective climate policy is hard, but even imperfect policy will help struggling families

Here’s the bottom line: a carbon tax can be regressive, but it doesn’t have to be. It all depends on how badly the policy is mangled (or not) by the policymakers. As David Roberts points out, a carbon tax could be rendered unfair and ineffective in myriad ways, but no climate policy is without its pitfalls. Any attempt to deal with the climate crisis can be easily corrupted by incompetent policymakers and corporate interests. A carbon tax is just one possible (and possibly treacherous) path to a low-carbon future. But, because climate change is itself regressive, any effort to deal with carbon pollution, however imperfectly, will prove vital to protecting the poorest and most vulnerable among us.

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Lindsey Graham Challenges Republicans: ‘Tell Me Why’ You Deny Climate Science

Today, during a convention in New Hampshire hosted by the bipartisan group No Labels, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) took a moment to differentiate himself from the rest of the GOP field by talking about climate change.

As one of the only Republican presidential candidates to repeatedly bring up climate change in the press and during campaign stops, Graham began by asking the audience if anyone there believed climate change was real. Nearly half of the attendees raised their hands and applauded.

“I do, too,” Graham said. “So here’s the trade-off. For those of you who believe climate change is real, you’re gonna have to deal with a guy like me who will push a lower carbon economy over time and in a business friendly way. The great trade-off is energy producers and environmentalists in a room trying to find, over a 50 year period, a way to go to a lower-carbon economy while in the meantime responsibly exploring for fossil fuels that we own and trying to create alternative energy in every sector of the economy.”

Graham’s assertion that climate change must be solved in a business-friendly way — a position that includes support for continued fossil fuel extraction — elicited a call of “Keep it in the ground!” from one audience member. An analysis of global fossil fuel reserves published last January in Nature found that, in order to avoid catastrophic climate change, the vast majority of existing fossil fuel reserves will need to remain in the ground.

Graham continued by contrasting Democrats who view climate change as a “religion” with Republicans that refuse to accept the mainstream consensus on climate science.

“It is, to me folks, a problem that needs to be solved, not a religion,” Graham said of climate change. “So to my friends on the left who are making this a religion, you’re making a mistake. To my friends on the right who deny the science, tell me why.”

Trotting out a popular climate denier talking point, Graham told the audience that he is “not a scientist,” joking that he received a “D” in science in school only because the teacher didn’t give “F’s.” But, he continued, he has seen first-hand the way that climate change is altering the landscape and lifestyle of places around the world, from Alaska to Antarctica.

“I’ve been to the Antarctic,” Graham told the audience. “I’ve been to Greenland. I’ve been to Alaska and I’ve heard from people who live in these regions how the climate is changing. And when 90 percent of climatologists tell you that it’s real, who am I to tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about?”

Technically, Graham’s comment is incorrect — 97 percent of climate scientists, not 90 percent, believe that climate change is real and that human activity is the primary cause. But Graham’s acceptance of mainstream climate science could work in his favor with voters — according to a recent poll, 90 percent of Americans — across political parties — believe that candidates running for Congress or president should have an understanding of the science that informs public policy.

Graham concluded the climate section of his speech by outlining how he would combat climate change while helping business. The trade-off, Graham said, would include more nuclear power and oil and gas exploration combined with a push toward low-carbon technologies.

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How El Niño Could Threaten Millions With Starvation

As this year’s El Niño forecast becomes increasingly clear, drought-parched Californians are hopeful that the pattern will bring much needed rains to the abnormally dry region.

But around the world, the looming El Niño pattern could drive extreme weather patterns and continued droughts, putting millions at risk of starvation due to low agricultural production and lack of water, according to a report released earlier this month by Oxfam.

El Niño is a weather pattern that occurs when ocean temperatures across the equatorial Pacific are abnormally warm, driving extreme weather elsewhere. Some weather forecasters believe that this year’s El Niño could be as severe as the 1997-98 El Niño, which is estimated to have caused the death of some 23,000 people.

Already, droughts along Africa’s eastern coast have left millions without food. In Ethiopia, poor rains have forced some 4.5 million residents to seek food aid, while in Malawi, floods followed by drought have cut the maize harvest by more than a quarter, threatening between two and three million with hunger. Drought has also reduced Zimbabwe’s maize harvest by more than a third, threatening some 1.5 million with hunger.

“Over the next few months the El Niño will attain maximum strength,” the Oxfam report read. “This will coincide with the coming rains in Southern Africa, due from November onwards. Meteorologists predict a high probability of below-average rains again as a result. A second successive poor rainy season across Southern Africa will bring serious food security problems next year.”

Throughout Central America, two years of drought have also led to below-average harvests. According to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, dry weather caused by El Niño is responsible for declines of 60 percent in maize and 80 percent in beans across Central America. With the forecast calling for an even stronger El Niño this year, Central America will likely face increasingly dry conditions.

El Niño has also contributed to abnormally dry conditions in the southwestern Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea, where more than two dozen people have died due to hunger and contaminated water. Oxfam Australia’s climate change policy advisor Simon Bradshaw told the Guardian that many parts of Papua New Guinea have about two to three months of food left, but other areas — mainly those in the country’s highland areas — could run out of food in less than a month.

“In the highland areas people are almost exclusively reliant on subsistence farming, farming of sweet potatoes,” Bradshaw said. “We do know that water is becoming very scarce, that’s of course impacting food production, and PNG is almost entirely dependent on its own food — I think 83 percent of its food is produced in-country – so any hit on food production poses immediate challenges in terms of food security.”

As the 2015 El Niño strengthens, countries near the equator can expect more frequent and stronger rains, threatening low-lying island nations with flooding. In the southwest Pacific, however, dry conditions are expected to continue and intensify, prompting humanitarian agencies to fear a large-scale crisis.

“El Niño has the potential to trigger a regional humanitarian emergency and we estimate as many as 4.1 million people are at risk from water shortages, food insecurity and disease across the Pacific,” Sune Gudnitz, head of the Pacific region office of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the Guardian. “Drought conditions would further complicate the humanitarian situation in countries that are just emerging from the devastation caused by tropical cyclones Pam, Maysak and Raquel.”

Forecasters say that warming ocean temperatures — linked to climate change — could make strong El Niño events like the one expected this year twice as likely in the future.

“Warming seas could double the frequency of the most powerful El Niños, and as global warming creates more and more sea-surface temperature ‘hot spots’ in the world’s oceans, and wind systems change as a result, extreme weather and greater climate disruption may be what a ‘normal’ future looks like if greenhouse gas emissions are not urgently and drastically reduced,” the Oxfam report concluded. “The combination of record warmth one year followed by an El Niño the next is unique and the climatic implications are uncertain. If 2016 follows a similar pattern we are entering uncharted waters.”

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Climate ChangeEl NinoFood

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This Tiny Country Is Going 100 Percent Organic

In 2011, the tiny mountain nation of Bhutan announced a lofty goal: make the country’s agricultural system 100 percent organic by the year 2020. If it succeeded, it would be the first country in the world to achieve the feat.

Bhutan — nestled in the Himalayas between India and China — only has about 700,000 people living within its borders, and most are farmers. It’s a majority Buddhist kingdom, and its culture reflects several key tenets of that religion — sustainable development, conservation of the environment, preservation of the culture, and good governance.

When we say happiness, it’s not just happiness of humans. It’s happiness of the soil, happiness of the animals, happiness of all sentient beings

In many ways, Bhutan’s size and Buddhist culture makes it the perfect testing ground for transitioning to a completely organic agricultural system. But would such a shift ever be possible for a larger country, like the United States?

“For a country like Bhutan, there are some things that are a lot easier, because they are a smaller country,” Kristine Nichols, chief scientist at the Rodale Institute, a nonprofit that supports research into organic farming, told ThinkProgress. “When you’re looking at a country like the U.S., if we were to go 100 percent organic, more than likely it isn’t going to be an instantaneous process. It’s going to be a transition process.”

Sowing the seeds of organic agriculture in Bhutan

Bhutan is currently still in the middle of that transition process, though the small country had a few things already working in its favor even before 2011. Bhutan is the only country in the world that rejects gross domestic product (GDP) as a measure of progress. Since 1971, the country has instead relied on a measurement known as gross domestic happiness — a benchmark that seeks to quantify the happiness and health of the entire country.

“When we say happiness, it’s not just happiness of humans. It’s happiness of the soil, happiness of the animals, happiness of all sentient beings,” Appachanda Thimmaiah, Bhutan’s agricultural adviser from 2008 to 2013 and associate professor of sustainable living at Maharishi University of Management in Iowa, told ThinkProgress. “Organic farming was very much part of the gross national happiness. You cannot think about applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides and say that your country is happy.”

That’s a cultural philosophy, Thimmaiah said, that he doesn’t see present in the United States.

“Here, we use the word ‘dirt’ for the ‘soil,’ from a very young age,” he said. “That gets ingrained in the mind, and as the child grows up, the child thinks soil is dirty, so what’s the problem in applying pesticide?”

Beginning in 2008, Thimmaiah worked with the Bhutanese government to help the country begin its transition to 100 percent organic agriculture, a partnership that culminated in the development of a National Organic Policy. A crucial part of implementing Bhutan’s NOP, Thimmaiah said, was expanding the educational resources for farmers — beginning with something as simple as redefining the idea of “organic agriculture.”

“I used a term called low-cost agriculture; I didn’t use the word organic agriculture,” Thimmaiah said. “I told them that our main purpose should be to reduce the cost of production.”

For Bhutan, with its mountainous topography, Thimmaiah was confident that organic agriculture, when done correctly, would be more cost-effective than the transportation costs associated with shipping chemical fertilizer throughout the country. Thimmaiah also worked to help farmers understand organic agriculture as being complementary to the local resources — and even waste products — of Bhutan.

…other countries can also emulate these things

That meant everything from teaching farmers how to produce their own pollinated heirloom seeds to reusing animal waste for manure. Many Bhutanese farmers, for instance, used to keep their livestock outside, tied to trees or in pastures. Thimmaiah encouraged them to build sheds with concrete floors that could help collect the livestock’s waste and urine, which could then be used to help fertilize the crops.

“I think this was really key — demonstration of simple, low cost techniques that utilized the local, available resources,” he said. “If it’s about buying inputs, organic farming cannot be successful. The most important thing in organic farming is to see that all the inputs that are required are produced in the farm itself by the farmers by utilizing the locally available resources.”

Thimmaiah says that Bhutan possesses both the political will and farmer interest to succeed in its goal of transitioning to 100 percent organic agriculture by 2020, but notes that there are some existing hurdles, as the country’s population continues to shift from rural to increasingly urban. And even if the country manages to transition, it still will likely rely heavily on imported food — right now, less than 4 percent of Bhutan’s land is under cultivation, though its agricultural productivity has increased 3 percent since beginning its organic push, according to Reuters.

To Thimmaiah, it’s crucial that the government be involved in the transition and support farmers as they make the move from conventional to organic.

“It’s a responsibility of the country to help them, to regard the good work by the farmers,” he said, adding that “other countries can also emulate these things.”

What would it mean for the United States to go 100 percent organic?

If the United States wanted to transition to 100 percent organic agriculture, Nichols explained, the first steps wouldn’t be much different from the path taken in Bhutan.

“From a government standpoint as well as a private industry standpoint, there needs to be support for these transitioning farmers,” Nichols said. “Without support, it can be difficult for many farmers to survive that transition process.”

In general, organic agriculture is a system that relies on cover crops and crop rotation to ensure soil health, and stresses the reduction of external and off-farm inputs. Organic farming, as a rule, eschews genetically modified crops, and some kinds of organic farming rely more on crop diversity to combat weeds and pests than pesticides and herbicides. But there are different levels to organic agriculture — not all organic practices completely reject pesticides, for instance. Some organic farms do use pesticides, they just use ones that are derived from natural, not synthetic, sources (and sometimes, those pesticides can be more harmful than chemical ones). And organic farming doesn’t necessarily mean small-scale farming — there is still industrial organic farming, and at least one study has suggested that large-scale organic farming is more carbon-intensive than conventional farming.

Nichols explained that, at least initially, farmers transitioning from conventional to organic agriculture often see their yields decrease, though she notes that several studies have shown marginal decreases in yields over the long-term. It’s worth noting that those studies, however, tend to compare best organic farming practices — like crop rotation and crop diversity — to a type of conventional agriculture that fails to use those practices. When conventional agriculture employs those conservation practices, the Genetic Literacy Project notes, the gap between conventional yields and organic yields widens.

It’s also important to note, however, that much of the grain — especially corn and soy — grown in the United States via conventional farming isn’t intended for human consumption. The vast majority of U.S. domestic corn is used for ethanol fuel or animal feed, leaving a relatively small sliver of the total production for food.

Nichols also notes a lack of infrastructure support for farmers hoping to transition from conventional to organic agriculture — most grain elevators, for instance, are set up to process non-organic grains, meaning that farmers that grow organic could be forced to transport their product long distances for processing, a cost that could negate the economic premium that organic products tend to collect at market. Another hurdle for farmers — at least as long as organic is still the minority production method — is obtaining an organic certification, which can be prohibitively expensive for some small operations.

I tell people, being an organic farmer is a lot more like raising kids than making cars

“There’s a lot of infrastructure things that would need to go into a large country like the United States becoming 100 percent organic,” Nichols said. “In a smaller country, where you’re closer to population centers, what you’re producing can be more directly marketed.”

John Ikerd, professor emeritus of Agricultural & Applied Economics University of Missouri Columbia, also notes that food prices would potentially increase if the United States were to switch to a 100 percent organic agricultural system — but he argues that the increase would not be insurmountable for the consumer.

“The studies that have been done on this indicate if we shifted to a sustainable system, we’d probably increase retail food prices by eight to twelve percent,” Ikerd said. But, he continued, using the majority of corn produced for either ethanol or livestock feed also raises food prices. “We’ve seen retail food prices go up more than that as a consequence of the corn ethanol program,” Ikerd explained. “When we take 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop and burn it in our cars, that takes all of that land out of producing food for either livestock or people.”

In the long term, Ikerd argues, organic agriculture is less costly than conventional agriculture, because the current price of conventional agriculture doesn’t include any of its detrimental effects on the environment, like dead zones and algal blooms from fertilizer runoff or carbon emissions from soil degradation.

“What makes these industrial operations more economically competitive is that they’re not paying the full environmental and social cost of what they’re doing,” Ikerd said. “When you shift to an agriculture that does not impose any of those costs on the environment or the people that work on that system, you’re going to have increased costs in the short term. In the long term, we’ll find that the organic system is less costly.”

In the end, Ikerd, Nelson, and Thimmaiah all agree that for the United States to switch to 100 percent organic agriculture, it would require a massive overhaul of our priorities, at a federal, industrial, and consumer level.

“The main thing is the mindset,” Ikerd said. “It’s a different way of thinking about what agriculture is. I tell people, being an organic farmer is a lot more like raising kids than making cars.”

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AgricultureClimate ChangeSustainability

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The House Just Did The Oil Industry A Huge Favor

The Republican-led House of Representatives voted Friday afternoon to lift the oil export ban, setting up a potential fight in the Senate and eventual veto from the White House.

Big Oil has been campaigning heavily for a repeal, as oil and gas prices have fallen globally, but opponents say that in fact lifting the ban will increase America’s dependence on foreign oil — and encourage more drilling and fracking in the United States. Environmentalists said Friday that the House move was simply kowtowing to fossil fuel interests during a time of political upheaval.

“The Republican party is in chaos right now,” Radha Adhar, a federal policy representative for the Sierra Club, told ThinkProgress, referring to the ongoing deliberations for a House speaker. “It appears that the only thing they can get unity on among their membership is that they support big polluter giveaways.”

The bill passed the House 261-169, with the support of only 26 Democrats.

During deliberations, Rep. Jack Pallone (D-NJ) called the repeal “a poorly crafted bill that needlessly and recklessly sweeps away 40 years of critical energy protections for national security, our economy, consumers, and the environment.”

Most Americans, according to polls, do not want the oil export ban to be lifted. While it’s considered a step in the wrong direction on the development of fossil fuels, it also raises concerns for many consumers that oil and gas prices will go up once the American product hits the global market.

“There are, of course, the environmental and climate impacts of lifting the export ban. Energy policy is fundamentally linked to environmental policy,” he said.

It is unclear whether the repeal will make it through the Senate. While Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Sen. Heidi Heikamp (D-ND) have cosponsored a companion bill, there is not broad support for its passage, Adhar said.

The White House this week offered strong words against lifting the ban.

“Legislation to remove crude export restrictions is not needed at this time. Rather, Congress should be focusing its efforts on supporting our transition to a low-carbon economy. It could do this through a variety of measures, including ending the billions of dollars a year in Federal subsidies provided to oil companies and instead investing in wind, solar, energy efficiency, and other clean technologies to meet America’s energy needs,” the Obama administration said in a statement. The president would be advised to veto a bill, if it were to reach his desk, the statement said.

Environmentalists took the White House’s words as as encouraging sign.

“This is an incredibly strong signal that the pathway to lifting this ban is going to be a long, rocky one that ultimately, we think, will fail,” Adhar said.

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