EcoRadio

Category: Climate chaos

The atmosphere is to the earth as a layer of varnish is to a desktop globe. It is thin, fragile and essential for preserving the items on the surface.150 years of burning fossil fuel have overloaded the atmosphere to the point where the earth is ill. It now has a fever. Read the detailed article, Soothing Gaia’s Fever for an evocative account of that analogy. The items listed here detail progress on coordinating 6.5 billion people in the most critical project undertaken by humanity. 

  • Political Interference with Scientific Studies

     

    Accordingly, the NASA Office of Inspector General conducted an administrative investigation to examine reports of alleged “political interference,” predominantly by senior NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs officials, with the work of NASA scientists pertaining to climate change–to include whether NASA inappropriately prevented one of its scientists, Dr. James E. Hansen, from speaking to the media in December 2005.

    Our investigation found that during the fall of 2004 through early 2006, the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public through those particular media over which the Office of Public Affairs had control (i.e., news releases and media access). We also concluded that the climate change editorial decisions were localized within the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs; we found no credible evidence suggesting that senior NASA or Administration officials directed the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs to minimize information relating to climate change. To the contrary, we found that once NASA leadership within the Office of the Administrator were made aware of the scope of the conflict between the Office of Public Affairs and scientists working on climate change, they aggressively implemented new policies with a view toward improved processes in editorial decision-making relating to scientific public affairs matters.

    Further, it is our conclusion that the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs’ actions were inconsistent with the mandate and intent of NASA’s controlling legislation–the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 19581 (Space Act) and NASA’s implementing regulations–insomuch as they prevented “the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination” of information concerning NASA’s activities and results. While we could not substantiate that Administration officials employed outside NASA approved or disapproved or edited specific news releases, we do, however, find by a preponderance of the evidence2 that the claims of inappropriate political interference made by the climate change scientists and career Public Affairs Officers were more persuasive than the arguments of the senior Public Affairs officials that their actions were due to the volume and poor quality of the draft news releases. Although the scientific information alleged to be “suppressed” appeared to be otherwise available through a variety of Agency forums, we cannot reconcile that the Space Act would permit any purposeful obfuscation of scientific research by the Agency in any news dissemination forum as “appropriate” under the Act.

    The supporting evidence detailed in this report reveals that climate change scientists and the majority of career Public Affairs Officers strongly believe that the alleged actions taken by senior NASA Headquarters Public Affairs officials intended to systemically portray NASA in a light most favorable to Administration policies at the expense of reporting unfiltered research results. Senior NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs officials (political appointees3) deny such actions, claiming that many of the proposed news releases were poorly written or too technical in nature for meaningful broad public dissemination.

    With respect to NASA’s climate change research activities, we found no evidence indicating that NASA blocked or interfered with the actual research activities of its climate change scientists. In contrast to our findings associated with the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs, we found that NASA systematically distributed its technical climate change research throughout the scientific community and otherwise made it available through a variety of specialized forums, such as scientific journals, professional conferences, and public appearances by NASA scientists. Further, our recent audit of NASA’s formal process for releasing scientific and technical data resulting from research conducted by its employees and contractors found no evidence that the process was used as a means to inappropriately suppress the release of scientific or technical data at the four NASA Field Centers reviewed.4 Of the 287 authors surveyed at those Field Centers, none indicated that they had experienced or knew of someone who had experienced actual or perceived suppression of their research by NASA management.5 In short, the defects we found are associated with the manner of operation of the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs and are largely due to the actions of a few key senior employees of that office.

    Regarding media access, our investigation confirmed that, contrary to its established procedures, the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs declined to make one of NASA’s scientists, Dr. James E. Hansen, available for a radio interview with National Public Radio in December 2005. Our investigative efforts revealed that NASA’s decision was based, in part, on concern that Dr. Hansen would not limit his responses to scientific information but would instead entertain a discussion on policy issues. NASA maintains that the decision to deny media access to Dr. Hansen was unilaterally made by a junior Schedule C political appointee in the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs. The evidence, however, reflects that this appointee acted in accord with the overall management of climate change information at that time within the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs.

    Regardless of the aforementioned Space Act standards, we otherwise found that the Agency mismanaged this activity insomuch as it occurred over a sustained period of time until senior management was eventually alerted by congressional staff and the media. That senior management did not know before then was emblematic of ineffective internal management controls such as a dispute resolution mechanism between contributing scientists and public affairs officials. This is especially true in that relations between NASA’s climate change science community and the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs had somehow deteriorated into acrimony, non-transparency, and fear that science was being politicized–attributes that are wholly inconsistent with effective and efficient Government. The investigation also uncovered that one of the underlying contributing factors of these problems may have, in fact, been in the very structure of the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs, where political appointees were placed in the seemingly contradictory position of ensuring the “widest practicable” dissemination of NASA research results that were arguably inconsistent with the Administration’s policies, such as the “Vision for Space Exploration.”

    That said, the core issue of how our Government in general, and NASA in particular, continues to manage the important issue of climate change information is worthy of careful consideration by both the Executive and Legislative branches of Government– and is an issue that the NASA Office of Inspector General will continue to monitor from an Agency oversight perspective.

    We provided a draft of this Investigative Summary to the NASA Administrator on March 6, 2008, for the purpose of soliciting the Agency’s comments. The Agency’s comments (Appendix D) were received on April 18, 2008. Our evaluation of those comments is also provided (Appendix E).

    1 The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, Pub. L. No. 85-568, 72 Stat. 426 (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. S 2451 et. seq. [2007]).

    2 Preponderance of the evidence is a standard of proof that simply requires that the matter asserted seems more likely true than not.

    3 The term “political appointee” in this report refers to two categories of appointments–Schedule C and Non-Career Senior Executive Service.

    4 Goddard Space Flight Center, Johnson Space Center, Langley Research Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center.

    5 NASA Office of Inspector General, “Final Report on NASA’s Actions Needed to Ensure Scientific and Technical Information Is Adequately Reviewed at Goddard Space Flight Center, Johnson Space Center, Langley Research Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center” (IG-08-017, May 21, 2008).

     

  • Forests and the Planet

Deforestation accounts for one-fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — about the same as China’s emissions, more than the emissions generated by all of the world’s cars and trucks. And the world is doing far too little to stop it. An estimated 30 million acres of rain forest disappear every year, destroying biodiversity and pouring billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The global warming bill now working its way through the House seeks to change this destructive dynamic in two ways. It sets up a carbon trading system that is expected to raise upward of $60 billion annually through the sale of pollution allowances. Five percent of that would be set aside to help prevent deforestation, either through a special international fund or as bilateral grants to poor countries.

In addition, the bill would allow for the kinds of offsets proposed and rejected in Kyoto, Japan. For example, a power company having trouble meeting its emissions limits could satisfy some of its obligations by paying to reduce deforestation elsewhere in the world.

The economics make sense. It is a relatively inexpensive way for industrialized nations to get credit for reducing global emissions while they make the necessary investments to control their own pollution. And it is a good deal for poor countries. The World Bank estimates that an acre of rain forest converted to crops is worth $100 to $250. It’s worth far more under a system that puts a value on carbon. An average acre stores about 200 tons of carbon; assuming a low price of $10 a ton, that acre is suddenly worth $2,000.

A big effort will still be required to resist the loggers, miners, ranchers and politicians who have had their way with the rain forests for years. And any plan must include safeguards and inspection mechanisms to ensure that the allowances and offsets are being used properly.

But with the rain forests shrinking and the planet warming up, it’s crucial to get the right incentives in place — first as part of broad climate change legislation in the United States, then as part of a new global treaty that the world’s nations hope to negotiate in the fall.

  • Global warming dauses 300.000 deaths a year, says Kofi Annan thinktank

     

    Economic losses due to climate change today amount to more than $125bn a year — more than all the present world aid. The report comes from former UN secretary general Kofi Annan’s thinktank, the Global Humanitarian Forum. By 2030, the report says, climate change could cost $600bn a year.

    Civil unrest may also increase because of weather-related events, the report says: “Four billion people are vulnerable now and 500m are now at extreme risk. Weather-related disasters … bring hunger, disease, poverty and lost livelihoods. They pose a threat to social and political stability”.

    If emissions are not brought under control, within 25 years, the report states:

    • 310m more people will suffer adverse health consequences related to temperature increases

    • 20m more people will fall into poverty

    • 75m extra people will be displaced by climate change.

    Climate change is expected to have the most severe impact on water supplies . “Shortages in future are likely to threaten food production, reduce sanitation, hinder economic development and damage ecosystems. It causes more violent swings between floods and droughts. Hundreds of millions of people are expected to become water stressed by climate change by the 2030. “.

    The study says it is impossible to be certain who will be displaced by 2030, but that tens of millions of people “will be driven from their homelands by weather disasters or gradual environmental degradation. The problem is most severe in Africa, Bangladesh, Egypt, coastal zones and forest areas. .”

    The study compares for the first time the number of people affected by climate change in rich and poor countries. Nearly 98% of the people seriously affected, 99% of all deaths from weather-related disasters and 90% of the total economic losses are now borne by developing countries. The populations most at risk it says, are in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, south Asia and the small island states of the Pacific.

    But of the 12 countries considered least at risk, including Britain, all but one are industrially developed. Together they have made nearly $72bn available to adapt themselves to climate change but have pledged only $400m to help poor countries. “This is less than one state in Germany is spending on improving its flood defences,” says the report.

    The study comes as diplomats from 192 countries prepare to meet in Bonn next week for UN climate change talks aimed at reaching a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in December in Copenhagen. “The world is at a crossroads. We can no longer afford to ignore the human impact of climate change. This is a call to the negotiators to come to the most ambitious agreement ever negotiated or to continue to accept mass starvartion, mass sickness and mass migration on an ever growing scale,” said Kofi Annan, who launched the report today in London.

    Annan blamed politians for the current impasse in the negotiations and widespread ignorance in many countries. “Weak leadership, as evident today, is alarming. If leaders cannot assume responsibility they will fail humanity. Agreement is in the interests of every human being.”

    Barabra Stocking, head of Oxfam said: “Adaptation efforts need to be scaled up dramatically.The world’s poorest are the hardest hit, but they have done the least to cause it.

    Nobel peace prizewinner Wangari Maathai, said: “Climate change is life or death. It is the new global battlefield. It is being presented as if it is the problem of the developed world. But it’s the developed world that has precipitated global warming.”

    Calculations for the report are based on data provided by the World Bank, the World Health organisation, the UN, the Potsdam Insitute For Climate Impact Research, and others, including leading insurance companies and Oxfam. However, the authors accept that the estimates are uncertain and could be higher or lower. The paper was reviewed by 10 of the world’s leading experts incluing Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, Jeffrey Sachs, of Columbia University and Margareta Wahlström, assistant UN secretary general for disaster risk reduction.

  • Gore’s green groups kick into campaign mode to push climate legislation

     

    Gore founded the Alliance for Climate Protection and The Climate Project in 2006 with money he earned from An Inconvenient Truth and other ventures.  He’s built them into “multi-hundred-million-dollar” organizations “aimed at getting the facts before the people,” he told Grist. Up to this point, their work has been largely separate: The Climate Project has trained 2,600 people to present versions of Gore’s famous slideshow, while the Alliance has run major advertising campaigns to convince Americans of the need to address the climate crisis.

    But now the two groups are coordinating closely as they enter a new campaign-style phase with a focused mission: passing a solid climate bill.

    The plan, according to Alliance CEO Maggie Fox, is to organize “the biggest mobilization that the climate movement has ever seen.”

    Getting into the field

    Fox came to the Alliance in March from America Votes, a coalition of progressive groups that coordinates get-out-the-vote drives in swing states.  She replaced Cathy Zoi, who left to join the Obama administration as assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

    The Alliance recently brought on other veterans of national political campaigns: Steve Hildebrand, the Obama campaign’s deputy national campaign director, is working as a consultant for the project.  Steve Bouchard, a veteran of the 2004 and 2008 Democratic presidential campaigns, is campaign manager for the Alliance. Brian Rogers, spokesperson for John McCain’s presidential campaign last year, has come on board as research director.

    The group is hiring a fleet of veteran field organizers who cut their teeth during the Obama campaign, and who bring a wealth of grassroots organizing skills. Since the beginning of the year, the group’s paid staff has grown from 20 people to 120, with plans to expand up to 250 in the next few months.  The Alliance has moved its headquarters from California to Washington, D.C., but at the same time sent many of its organizers far outside the Beltway.  New hires include 16 state directors and 55 regional field organizers, working in a total of 28 states, with a particular emphasis on the districts of swing-vote representatives in the Midwest and South who need encouragement to support climate legislation.

    The group’s annual budget hasn’t changed—it’s still in the range of $80 million to $100 million, Fox confirms—but now, instead of spending the bulk of its money on big ad campaigns, it’s dividing funds between advertising and on-the-ground staff.

    “We know we can’t win this through just paid media,” said Bouchard. “The idea was to develop a comprehensive campaign, just like you would in any electoral context.”

    “If we’re going to make a difference, it’s going to be in people’s congressional districts and people’s states,” said Hildebrand. “What happens in Washington oftentimes is very important, but where we’re going to apply pressure is back home. I wish everyone in the environmental community would empty out their offices in Washington and ship them back to these states and districts to create a lot of noise.”

    Fox, citing lessons learned in her time with America Votes, notes the importance of spreading organizers out to crucial districts. The Alliance has been coordinating with partners from environmental, labor, religious, and progressive groups to figure out which areas are already covered and which need people on the ground.

    “It’s not just that you have to agree on the elements of a legislative package,” said Fox. “What we are agreeing on now is how to cover the map, how to engage, involve, and reach out to constituencies across the map.”

    Rallying the troops

    Hildebrand touts a community-organizing model—which was quite successful for his former boss last year.

    “The big lesson from the Obama campaign is let people help develop their destiny,” said Hildebrand. “Everybody knows how to be active in their community. You don’t have to teach them, you don’t have to hand-hold them. You need to give them encouragement, you need to make sure they buy into what the mission is, and they will go to town, and they will do the job that you need them to do.”

    As in an electoral campaign, the paid Alliance staff have expectations each day, including how many phone calls, letters to the editor, and press events they’re supposed to generate or organize.

    “You need to create noise, you need to get calls into these members’ offices, demand meetings,” said Hildebrand.

    The Alliance has a large pool of supporters to call into action, including an email list of 2.3 million, more than double the number of names it had a year ago.  The group is encouraging volunteers within its network to gather community members in a room, talk about the importance of passing climate legislation, and start assigning jobs: a phone-bank captain, a letter-to-the-editor captain, a scheduler, a press person, a community-outreach leader.

    Alliance organizers don’t want their troops to delve too deeply into the specifics of climate policy, like how deep emissions cut should be or what percentage of power should be drawn from renewables. They’re focusing on a straightforward goal, according to Fox: “Bold climate action this year.” And right now that means supporting the Waxman-Markey climate bill, “even if the prettiness of it is not what I might want or you might want or the vice president might want,” said Fox.

    This approach has already started paying off.  In the weeks leading up a critical vote in the House Energy and Commerce Committee on the bill, the Alliance’s network of activists sent 20,000 letters to 960 newspapers in key congressional districts, according to Fox.  The Alliance also hosted more than 30 town hall meetings in the districts of committee members. The committee passed the bill on May 21.

    This week, during Congress’ Memorial Day recess, Alliance organizers are coordinating another 30 or so town halls to draw attention to the issue of climate change while representatives are in their home districts.

    As debate over climate legislation moves forward in Congress, the Alliance is building a “legislative war room” that can do rapid response, sending out action alerts and directives to supporters around the country.

    A slideshow, reborn

    Gore’s other group, The Climate Project, is proving a critical partner in these efforts. It has trained 1,200 volunteers in the U.S. and 2,600 worldwide over the past two and half years to deliver the slideshow on global warming that Gore made famous in An Inconvenient Truth. These activists have reached 5 million people through 50,000 presentations.

    Now, in a new phase of the project kicked off at its North American summit in Nashville, Tenn., earlier this month, Climate Project volunteers will be pushing for a climate bill—and using a retooled slideshow to do it.

    “Phase two is entering into a more activism phase, an issue campaign to give them the tools and other information that they’re going to need to go forth and increase public engagement in this issue,”  Jenny Clad, executive director of The Climate Project, told Grist at the summit.  “One hundred percent of the people here will be pushing for the toughest, strongest climate legislation that we can possibly pass in this country.”

    The climate presenters have been successful so far because they use “peer-to-peer persuasion,” said Clad.  “[People] are more likely to be persuaded by people that they go to church with, go to school with, work with. They are more likely to listen to this person when they say ‘We’ve got to listen and start doing something’ than they are perhaps to great scientists and icons when they say it.”

    Press wasn’t permitted to see the new slideshow yet, but summit attendees report that it includes updated (and scarier) climate science data, as well as new info about the technological and legislative solutions that could help address the problem. The new presentation, said Clad, is “not just how do we change light bulbs, but how do we change laws as well.”

    Storming the airwaves

    Though there’s a new emphasis on grassroots engagement, the Climate Alliance isn’t abandoning its ad campaigns.

    Its best-known advertising blitz was the “We Can Solve It” campaign, with the memorable ad featuring Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich sitting together on a couch and calling for climate action.  In November 2008, the Alliance launched its Repower America campaign supporting Gore’s call to shift to 100 percent clean energy in 10 years.

    The group recently ran a new set of Repower America TV ads around the country, calling on 14 swing-vote legislators on the Energy and Commerce Committee to support the Waxman-Markey bill—and 10 out of 14 did, voting to pass it out of committee last week. Another ad currently airing on national cable features a blue-collar worker asking Congress to take on the “big oil boys” and support clean energy.

    With all these efforts combined, Gore and his team are confident they’ll be able to influence the debate at least as much as dirty energy interests have thus far.

    “They have their billions and billions of dollars in record profits … We don’t think we’ll ever compete head to head,” said Hildebrand. “We just have enough to create the kind of noise that’s really needed to get something serious done.”

    ——-

  • Can the US Afford Cap-and-Trade ?

     

    In our latest report, Greenhouse Gases and the American Lifestyle: Understanding Interstate Differences in Emissions, we analyze interstate variation in per capita emissions from residential fuel use, electricity use and transportation. Our report finds that the variation in states emissions is the result of many factors, some more controllable than others.

    Some parts of the country are colder than others and face greater heating requirements; some are hotter and need more energy for cooling. People who live in rural, low-density states drive more than those who live in urban, high-density areas, resulting in more transportation emissions.

    But there are other factors well within states’ control that affect household emissions. The extent of public transportation in urban areas varies widely from state to state; the level of gasoline taxes differs as well. Both of these policies have a direct, measurable effect on automobile usage and thus on transportation emissions. The reliance on coal power for electricity generation has a large impact on residential. Energy efficiency is important too.

    The differences between states, though they look large at first glance, seem less so as the reasons why these differences exist become clearer. We can address the differences in impacts between states through smart climate and energy policies. A cap-and-trade program that auctions permits (or a carbon tax) will generate the revenue stream we need to invest in renewable energies, energy efficiency and assist the households that will be most impacted by climate policy.

    Above all, information about policies that have succeeded in reducing emissions in some states should be circulated to the rest of the country to demonstrate that it is possible to produce a comfortable American lifestyle with carbon emissions well below average. Following their example more widely is an important first step on the road to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to a sustainable level.

    Economists across the country are organizing themselves to demonstrate that the U.S. economy can afford to deal with climate change. This report is just one part of this larger national effort, initiated by Economics for Equity and the Environment Network and our partners at Stockholm Environment Institute – US and Ecotrust.

    We’ve launched a new website, RealClimateEconmics.org, that surveys the published literature in climate economics. It demonstrates that the weight of economic evidence supports immediate policy measures to address climate change. These studies show that the cost of preventing climate change can be addressed efficiently and fairly, and that the costs pale in comparison to the costs of inaction. Economics should not be used as the rationale for delaying action on climate change.

    Kristen Sheeran is the director of Economics for Equity and the Environment Network (E3), a nationwide network of economists developing new arguments for environmental protection with a social justice focus. Prior to her role with E3 Network, she was an Associate Professor of Economics at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, Maryland’s public honors college.

    Her research is primarily focused on the tension between equity and efficiency in climate change mitigation. She has published articles in Environmental and Resource Economics, Ecological Economics, Climatic Change, Journal of Economic Issues, Eastern Economic Journal, Seattle Journal for Social Justice, and Berkeley La Raza Law Journal. Her book, Saving Kyoto with Graciela Chichilnisky, will be published later this year by New Holland Press.

    To watch a video interview with Dr. Kristen Sheenan in which she discusses this report,  click here.

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  • Wong admits mistake

    The key condition the Government set on its highly conditional 25%
    emissions reduction target was the achievement of a global agreement to
    stabilise atmospheric carbon at 450 parts per million by 2050. Such an
    ambitious goal would be welcome, but would require far stronger action
    from Australia and it would mean very steep emissions reductions from
    all countries.

    The first line of the Prime Minister’s press release from May 4 reads:

    ‘The Rudd Government has today committed to reduce Australia’s carbon
    pollution by 25 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020 if the world agrees
    to an ambitious global deal to stabilise levels of CO2 equivalent at 450
    parts per million or lower by mid century.’

    As Minister Wong acknowledged in Estimates hearings today, however, the
    Government’s position, backed up by Professor Garnaut’s modelling, is
    for stabilisation at 450ppm by 2140, not 2050. This would put the world
    on a much slower and more dangerous reduction trajectory.

    “The Prime Minister’s target was wrong by 90 years,” Senator Brown said.

    “This mistake changes the whole effect and meaning of the Government’s
    position. It moves it from an ambitious global goal to a weak one.

    “The Minister’s office and the Department of Climate Change have known
    about this mistake since at least Tuesday, when it was revealed by the
    ANU’s Andrew Macintosh.

    “The Minister told the Committee she would find out whether the Prime
    Minister has at any time been informed of this mistake.

    “Minister Wong and her department said that no-one in the business of
    environment groups backing the Government had asked about the vital
    error. It is extraordinary that the mistake was not picked up.”

    Tim Hollo
    Media Adviser
    Senator Christine Milne | Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Climate
    Change Spokesperson
    Suite SG-112 Parliament House, Canberra ACT | P: 02 6277 3588 | M: 0437
    587 562
    http://www.christinemilne.org.au/| www.GreensMPs.org.au
    <http://www.greensmps.org.au/>