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Climate change impacts in our backyards: the Great Plains
Posted on Thursday, July 02, 2009
How great will the Great Plains still be in the face of global climate disruption? What can we expect to see in the this vast swath of land, bordered on the west by the Rocky Mountains and on the east by Mississippi River, ranging from Wyoming and North Dakota abutting Canada all the way down to the southern tip of Texas? How will US agriculture be impacted? What are decisionmakers doing to prepare in this region? This 5th post in our series delving into Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States takes a look what is in store for the Great Plains, and how people are beginning to deal with climate consequences in this region. |
post by Anne Polansky and Alexa Jay • Comments may be sent to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
CSW Series on Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States: Part 5
The Great Plains, a vast area of temperate grasslands sometimes referred to as “the Prairies,” covers parts or all of ten states—Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming. The Great Plains region extends beyond US borders: northward into the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and southward into Mexico. In the 1800s, the land was best known for huge herds of bison, hunted nearly to extinction.
This region is expected to be under siege from several directions from the effects of dwindling water resources driven by higher heat-related demands, and from higher pest populations made possible by warmer temperatures. Projected changes in long-term climate and more frequent extreme events such as heat waves, droughts, and heavy rainfall will affect many aspects of life in the Great Plains, including “the region’s already threatened water resources, essential agricultural and ranching activities, unique natural and protected areas, and the health and prosperity of its inhabitants,” to quote the impacts report. These changes have become apparent in the Great Plains over the last few decades.
Some specifics:
Temperatures Rising
• “Average temperatures have increased throughout the region, with the largest changes occurring in winter months and over the northern states. Relatively cold days are becoming less frequent and relatively hot days more frequent.”
Precipitation: A mixed bag of consequences
• Unlike the West, precipitation has increased over much of the Great Plains, especially in the north. In the future, conditions are expected to become wetter in the north and drier in the south.
• More precipitation and warmer winter temperatures in the northern region of the Great Plains could mean a boon for some types of crop-growing.
• The availability of water resources is already at issue on the Great Plains. Current water usage cannot be sustained, as the High Plains aquifer continues to be tapped faster than the rate of recharge.
• Future projections do not bode well for water availability: “increasing temperatures, faster evaporation rates, and more sustained droughts brought on by climate change will only add more stress to overtaxed water sources.”
• “Projected increases in precipitation are unlikely to be sufficient to offset decreasing soil moisture and water availability due to rising temperatures and aquifer depletion.”
Agriculture:
• More than two thirds (70%) of the land in the Great Plains is agricultural; farming and ranching are major industries, and the Great Plains is a major food source for the nation.
• Temperature increases over the coming century will lead to shifts in optimal zones for particular crops. For example, “plant species that mature earlier and are more resistant to disease and pests are more likely to thrive under warmer condition.”• However, acting as a threat multiplier, climate change can alter the environment in such a way that insects that are pests could begin to pose a major threat to Great Plains agriculture. Insect species “that were historically unable to survive in the Great Plains’ cooler areas are expected to spread northward,” according to the June 2009 impacts report. “Milder winters and earlier springs also will encourage greater numbers and earlier emergence of insects.”
• Many who prefer to emphasize the positive aspects of climate change, the potential benefits, like to talk about the ability of rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to increase crop growth. However, it is important to note that elevated CO2 also allows some types of weeds grow even faster than planted crops, and tends to favor invasive species.
• Increased crop and livestock diversification will be needed to adapt to a warmer climate; the report also notes that a transition from irrigated to rain-fed agriculture may be desirable, especially since the northern regions can expect more rain.
• The report issues a stern warning: “producers who can adapt to changing climate conditions are likely to see their businesses survive; some might even thrive. Others, without resources or ability to adapt effectively, will lose out.” Adaptation measures are underway, with some farmers returning to “dryland farming” rather than relying soley on irrigation for their crops, preserving crop residue to help the soil absorb more moisture from rain and ease the burden on already-stressed groundwater. Farmers are beginning to employ dynamic cropping systems to increase crop diversity and improve water-use efficiency.
~ ~ ~ ~
Preparing for climate change consequences: What is the current state of play in Great Plains states?
We offer some examples:
Montana: The Montana Department of Environmental Quality has created a Climate Change Action Committee (CCAC) tasked with inventorying Montana’s greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 to 2020 and developing policy recommendations for emissions mitigation. A climate change action plan has been completed.
Kansas: The Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group (KEEP) was created in 2008 to identify opportunities for the state to pursue energy efficiency and respond to the challenges of global climate change. As identified by KEEP, the impacts of climate change that Kansas is projected to experience include: decreases in growing season precipitation like those of the worst Dust Bowl years, with temperature increases exceeding Dust Bowl averages by about 3° C (5.4° F), fluctuation or decline in crop levels in accordance with higher temperatures and reduced irrigation water supplies, intrusion of expanding disease ranges that may increase stresses on livestock production, and an increase in the frequency and duration of heat waves and disease vectors with the potential for a corresponding increase in human mortality rates. KEEP will inventory statewide greenhouse gas emissions and develop statewide goals for reductions in all economic sectors through 2025.
Colorado: The Colorado Climate Project (CCP), an initiative of a non-profit organization composed of local governments, businesses, and other non-profits, has developed recommendations for emissions mitigation and reduction of the state’s vulnerabilities to climate-related impacts. Possible impacts identified by the project include: “more frequent, hotter, and longer-lasting heat waves; less snow and earlier snowmelt; less available water in summer months, when demand is greatest; more frequent, more severe, and longer lasting droughts; more frequent and larger wildfires, and the spread of diseases and pests” (http://www.coloradoclimate.org/background-impacts.cfm). Governor Bill Ritter, Jr. has announced a Colorado Climate Agenda, which includes goals for reducing emissions 20% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, in accordance with CCP’s recommendations.
New Mexico: In 2005, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson established the New Mexico Climate Change Action Council and the New Mexico Climate Change Advisory Group. The Group identifies the significant concerns that New Mexico and other Western states have about the impacts of climate change on the local environment, including “the potential for prolonged drought, severe forest fires, warmer temperatures, increased snowmelt, reduced snow pack and other effects.” The Governor has issued energy efficiency standards for state agency buildings and vehicles, and has created several incentive initiatives in order to promote energy efficiency and the growth of clean energy. Incentives include solar energy tax rebates, and an energy production tax credit to provide incentive for renewable energy development. In addition, Governor Richardson and Governor Schwarzenegger of California have committed the Western Governor’s Association to “goals of 30,000 megawatts of clean energy produced in the west by 2015 and a 20% increase in energy efficiency by 2020.”
Additional posts will look at the Southwest, Northwest, Alaska, Islands, and Coasts. The seven sectors addressed in the report are: Water Resources, Energy Supply and Use, Transportation, Agriculture, Ecosystems, Human Health, and Society.
See related posts:
Part 1: “Global Climate Change Impacts in the US”—Report Overview (Part 1 of a series)
Part 2: Climate change in our backyards: the Northeast
Part 3: Climate change in our backyards: the Southeast
Part 4: Climate change impacts in our backyards: the Midwest
Resources:
Primary Source: Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. See the full, very-accessibly-written report for a more extensive discussion, including a substantial complement of graphics.
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS): Backgrounder on the Great Plains
Ojima, D and J. M. Lackett, 2002. PREPARING FOR A CHANGING CLIMATE: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change (Note: This Central Great Plains Climate Change Impacts Assessment is one of approximately 20 regional climate change reports produced as part of the US National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, meeting the requirement of the US Global Change Research Act.)
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): Assessments of Climate Impacts and Adaptation • |
House climate bill gives White House science office lead role in guiding climate research & services
Posted on Wednesday, July 01, 2009
We talked with Climate Wire about how the “Adapting to Climate Change” subtitle of the House-passed Waxman-Markey climate change cap and trade bill is an improvement over how the bill started out in its earlier discussion draft form—in putting the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, headed by John Holdren, in the lead role for reforming the U.S. Global Change Research Program and for designing the framework for a new National Climate Service, and in creating revenue streams from emissions allowances to help fund a set of new programs to enhance preparedness and adaptation to the impacts of climate change. |
Reporter Lauren Morello writes in the June 29 issue of Climate Wire (by subscription):
…Sweeping energy legislation the House approved Friday puts the federal government’s main climate research program and its burgeoning adaptation effort under White House control. It is a move that analysts said signals a policy priority for the White House and places climate change programs under the thumb of President Obama’s science adviser, John Holdren.
“The beauty of this is, when it’s at the White House level, the horsepower is behind it on behalf of the whole nation, with the notion that the president is endorsing it,” said Bob Corell, vice president for programs and policy at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment….
Meanwhile, OSTP chief Holdren released a major federal climate science report last week under the auspices of the U.S. Global Change Research Program—resurrecting the Clinton-era name and structure of a program the Bush administration split in two and transferred from White House to agency oversight….
The House-passed climate bill would rewrite the 1990 law that established the climate research program, placing it under OSTP’s control and emphasizing the need to identify U.S. vulnerability to the effects of climate change….
See our posts:
White House science and budget offices must lead in revitalizing federal climate research
Global Climate Change Impacts in the united States—Report Overview
Strengthening support through legislation
The House-passed climate bill is also poised to send billions of dollars to domestic, international, public health and wildlife adaptation programs by portioning revenue from the sale of carbon dioxide emissions allowances to polluters.
“It seems to me that the legislation is necessary in just about each and every case,” said Rick Piltz, executive director of ClimateScienceWatch and a former Climate Change Science Program employee during the George W. Bush administration. “Even in cases where you could establish something in the executive branch, there are funding mechanisms for a lot of it that you need to have in the bill, because the revenue comes from auctioning emissions allowances.”…
See our post:
Funding for adaptation in the Waxman-Markey House-passed climate change cap and trade bill
And when it comes to the National Climate Service, including it in the climate legislation now moving through Congress may have strengthened support for the plan, Piltz said, because it stirred debate over what the program should look like. Bush administration officials at NOAA began discussions about creating a climate service within that agency last year, an outline the Obama administration initially followed.
“In Jane Lubchenco’s first talk—days after she was confirmed—she talked about a National Climate Service at NOAA,” Piltz said. “Even on the Hill, people were saying, ‘This is a done deal. The administration wants Dr. Lubchenco and NOAA to have this.’ But there was some pushback on that, saying, ‘Wait a minute, there are problems with giving it to a single agency or even a single lead agency.’”
See our posts:
House Science Committee approves National Climate Service provisions for inclusion in Waxman-Markey bill
“The concept is so broad that it may not make sense to place a climate service inside NOAA.”
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): U.S. Global Change Research Program • Congress: Legislation and Oversight • |
Video of Al Franken interview with climate change whistleblower Rick Piltz, 2005
Posted on Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Al Franken, who has been declared the winner in the Minnesota U.S. Senate election, interviewed Rick Piltz on Air America Radio and the Sundance Channel on July 7, 2005. Piltz, now director of Climate Science Watch, talks about Bush White House political interference with federal climate science communication. |
Court Rules Franken Has Won Senate Seat; Coleman Concedes: The Minnesota Supreme Court today issued its long-awaited judgment in the Senate race, declaring that Democrat Al Franken is the winner. And Norm Coleman, his opponent, at 4 p.m., announced that he had conceded.
We posted this video to You Tube some time ago without calling attention to it on this site, but today we’d like to reiterate our appreciation for Al Franken for his interest in our story and for doing this interview.
See:
Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming
Editor of Climate Reports Resigns
Former Bush Aide Who Edited Reports Is Hired by Exxon
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): Climate Science Watch • |
Paul Krugman on “treason against the planet”—“the immorality of climate-change denial”
Posted on Monday, June 29, 2009
Most of the 212 representatives who voted no on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill that passed with a 7-vote margin in the House “rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases,” says Paul Krugman in his New York Times column on June 29. “And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet. To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research….” |
Krugman writes, in “Betraying the Planet:”
The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.
See MIT modeling study doubles earlier projected warming, poses challenge for impacts research
Thus researchers at M.I.T., who were previously predicting a temperature rise of a little more than 4 degrees by the end of this century, are now predicting a rise of more than 9 degrees. Why? Global greenhouse gas emissions are rising faster than expected; some mitigating factors, like absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans, are turning out to be weaker than hoped; and there’s growing evidence that climate change is self-reinforcing — that, for example, rising temperatures will cause some arctic tundra to defrost, releasing even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
See US Climate change impacts report shows immediate need for action—White House must lead in preparing
Video link and key quotes from White House briefing on Global Climate Change Impacts report
Temperature increases on the scale predicted by the M.I.T. researchers and others would create huge disruptions in our lives and our economy. As a recent authoritative U.S. government report points out, by the end of this century New Hampshire may well have the climate of North Carolina today, Illinois may have the climate of East Texas, and across the country extreme, deadly heat waves — the kind that traditionally occur only once in a generation — may become annual or biannual events.
See Climate changhe impacts in our backyards: the Midwest
Climate change in our backyards: the Southeast
Climate change in our backyards: the Northeast
In other words, we’re facing a clear and present danger to our way of life, perhaps even to civilization itself. How can anyone justify failing to act?
Well, sometimes even the most authoritative analyses get things wrong. And if dissenting opinion-makers and politicians based their dissent on hard work and hard thinking — if they had carefully studied the issue, consulted with experts and concluded that the overwhelming scientific consensus was misguided — they could at least claim to be acting responsibly.
But if you watched the debate on Friday, you didn’t see people who’ve thought hard about a crucial issue, and are trying to do the right thing. What you saw, instead, were people who show no sign of being interested in the truth. They don’t like the political and policy implications of climate change, so they’ve decided not to believe in it — and they’ll grab any argument, no matter how disreputable, that feeds their denial.
See Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, global warming denialist du jour on Capitol Hill
Indeed, if there was a defining moment in Friday’s debate, it was the declaration by Representative Paul Broun of Georgia that climate change is nothing but a “hoax” that has been “perpetrated out of the scientific community.” I’d call this a crazy conspiracy theory, but doing so would actually be unfair to crazy conspiracy theorists. After all, to believe that global warming is a hoax you have to believe in a vast cabal consisting of thousands of scientists — a cabal so powerful that it has managed to create false records on everything from global temperatures to Arctic sea ice.
Yet Mr. Broun’s declaration was met with applause.
See What does Rep. Broun of georgia have against a National Climate Service?
Given this contempt for hard science, I’m almost reluctant to mention the deniers’ dishonesty on matters economic. But in addition to rejecting climate science, the opponents of the climate bill made a point of misrepresenting the results of studies of the bill’s economic impact, which all suggest that the cost will be relatively low.
“Confidential” GOP memo on blocking cap-and-trade bill assumes lack of focus on cost of inaction
Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn’t it politics as usual?
Yes, it is — and that’s why it’s unforgivable.
Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an “existential threat” to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole — but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.
President Obama should lead in talking about the consequences of inaction on climate change
Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
See Dr. James Hansen call for fossil industry disinformants to be tried for “high crimes”
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): Congress: Legislation and Oversight • Global Warming Denial Machine • |
Climate change impacts in our backyards: the Midwest
This fourth post in our series delving into Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, a landmark report issued June 16, highlights the climate change consequences we can expect to see in the Midwest. While this region will likely escape the prolonged droughts that are projected to plague the West and the Southeast, midwestern states will be exposed to the hazards of more frequent deadly heat waves, more frequent, heavier downpours, and disruption of freshwater lake ecosystems. Already there have been two record-breaking floods in the past 15 years: the Great Flood of 1993, and a record-breaking 24-hour rainstorm in July 1996, which resulted in flash flooding in Chicago and its suburbs, causing extensive damage and disruption. |
post by Anne Polansky and Alexa Jay • Comments may be sent to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
CSW Series on Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States:
This fourth post of the series focuses on the Midwest; additional posts will look at Midwest, Great Plains, Southwest, Northwest, Alaska, Islands, and Coasts. The seven sectors addressed in the report are: Water Resources, Energy Supply and Use, Transportation, Agriculture, Ecosystems, Human Health, and Society.
See related posts:
Part 1: “Global Climate Change Impacts in the US”—Report Overview (Part 1 of a series)
Part 2: Climate change in our backyards: the Northeast
Part 3: Climate change in our backyards: the Southeast
Resources:
Source: Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. See the full, very-accessibly-written report for a more extensive discussion, including a substantial complement of graphics.
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS): Backgrounder on the Midwest
Temperature Increases (Heat Waves!)
• Large heat waves have been more frequent in the Midwest since the 1980s than any time in the last century, excluding the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s. As the warming trend continues, “heat waves that are more frequent, more severe, and longer-lasting are projected. Events like the Chicago heat wave of 1995, which killed over 700 people, will become more common.
o “Under a lower emissions scenario, similar heat waves are expected to occur every other year by the end of the century, while under the higher emissions scenario, there would be approximately three such heat waves per year.”
o Heat waves that are more severe still, such as the one that killed tens of thousands in Europe in 2003, “are projected to become more frequent in a warmer world, occurring as often as every other year in the Midwest by the end of this century under the higher emissions scenario.”
Precipitation: Droughts and Flooding
• “The Midwest has already and will continue to experience changes in the frequency, intensity, and distribution of precipitation.”
• When it does rain, it rains harder: “One of the clearest precipitation trends in the United States is the increasing frequency and intensity of heavy downpours.” “Heavy downpours are now twice as frequent as they were a century ago.” “The amount of precipitation falling in the heaviest 1 percent of rain events increased nearly 20 percent. During the past 50 years, the greatest increases in heavy precipitation occurred in the Northeast and the Midwest.”
• More intense flooding is more likely: “Flooding from increasingly intense downpours will increase the risk of disruptions and delays in air, rail, and road transportation, and damage from mudslides in some areas.” “Over the last century, there was a 50 percent increase in the frequency of days with precipitation over 4 inches in the upper Midwest.”
o “[I]ntense precipitation is likely to increase the frequency and severity of events such as the Great Flood of 1993, which caused catastrophic flooding along 500 miles of the Mississippi and Missouri river system, paralyzing surface transportation systems, including rail, truck, and marine traffic. Major east-west traffic was halted for roughly six weeks in an area stretching from St. Louis, Missouri, west to Kansas City, Missouri and north to Chicago, Illinois, affecting one-quarter of all U.S. freight, which either originated or terminated in the flood-affected region. The June 2008 Midwest flood was the second record-breaking flood in the past 15 years. Dozens of levees were breached or overtopped in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri, flooding huge areas, including nine square miles in and around Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Numerous highway and rail bridges were impassable due to flooding of approaches and transport was shut down along many stretches of highway, rail lines, and normally navigable waterways.” Increases in such events are likely to cause greater property damage, higher insurance rates, a heavier burden on emergency management, increased clean-up and rebuilding costs, and a growing financial toll on businesses, homeowners, and insurers.”
• Even with these heavier rains predicted, the Midwest is not immune from drought. In the summer, as evaporation rates and periods between rainfalls increase, the likelihood of drought will rise and water levels in rivers, streams, and wetlands are likely to decline. Lower water levels could also create problems for river traffic, reduce the recharge of groundwater, cause small streams to dry up (adversely affecting native fish populations), and reduce the area of wetlands in the Midwest.
Abrupt climate change:
“There is also the possibility of even larger changes in climate than current scenarios and models project. Not all changes in the climate are gradual… Earth’s climate patterns have undergone rapid shifts from one stable state to another within as short a period as a decade. The occurrence of abrupt changes in climate becomes increasingly likely as the human disturbance of the climate system grows. Such changes can occur so rapidly that they would challenge the ability of human and natural systems to adapt. Examples of such changes are abrupt shifts in drought frequency and duration. Ancient climate records suggest that in the United States, the Southwest may be at greatest risk for this kind of change, but that other regions including the Midwest and Great Plains have also had these kinds of abrupt shifts in the past and could experience them again in the future.” (emphasis added)
Health effects:
“Climate change impacts present many health risks for Midwesterners, from declining air quality to an increase in insect and waterborne disease. A warmer climate generally means more ground-level ozone (a component of smog), which can cause respiratory distress, especially for those who are young, old, or already suffer from respiratory problems. As the Midwest warms, insects such as ticks and mosquitoes that carry diseases like West Nile virus will be able to survive winters more easily and sustain larger populations. Warmer conditions allow more pathogens to thrive, causing an increase in the instance of waterborne diseases.
Effects on Aquatic Ecosystems:
Freshwater lakes need to “turn over” during the summer months in order to get oxygen down to the lower levels. But as water temperatures increase, there will be an earlier and longer period in summer during which “mixing of the relatively warm surface lake water with the colder water below is reduced.” This stratification acts to cut off oxygen from bottom layers, increasing the risk of oxygen-poor or oxygen-free “dead zones” that are fatal to fish and other living things. “Warmer water and low-oxygen conditions in the bottom layer of lakes also mobilize mercury and other contaminants in lake sediments. These increasing quantities of contaminants will be taken up in the aquatic food chain, adding to the existing health hazard for species that eat fish from the lakes, including people. Ecosystem disruptions resulting from invasions of non-native species, and the decline of native species, are also expected.”
Climate change effects on agriculture:
Although a warming climate may produce some positive effects in terms of crop production, the net impact of climate change on agriculture in the Midwest is expected to be negative: “the projected increase in winter and spring precipitation and flooding is likely to delay planting and crop establishment.” The positive effects that longer growing seasons and increased carbon dioxide have on some crop yields are “likely to be counterbalanced at least in part by the negative effects of additional disease-causing pathogens, insect pests, and weeds (including invasive weeds).” In addition, “livestock production is expected to become more costly as higher temperatures stress livestock, decreasing productivity and increasing costs associated with the needed ventilation and cooling equipment.” The ability of plants to thrive in their current environments will be affected by the warming climate: “by the end of the century, plants now associated with the Southeast are likely to become established throughout the Midwest.”
Issues for Planning and Preparedness in the Midwest
Several midwestern states have developed some sort of “climate change action plan” that addresses ways the state can take steps to reduce GHG emissions. Very little is in these plans on planning and preparedness for climate impacts, to promote adaptation.
Links for each of the midwestern states’ primary website for climate change appears below (from the Center for Climate Strategies website).
A separate, sister post will provide examples of steps being taken to effectively plan and prepare for climate change impacts, and identify areas where much more attention needs to be focused in order to reduce vulnerability and risk, and build in additional resiliency to climate disruption.
States without links do not yet have a climate action plan.
Indiana
Missouri
Ohio
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): Assessments of Climate Impacts and Adaptation • |
Remembering Jack Eddy, 1931-2009, R.I.P.
Posted on Sunday, June 28, 2009
John A. Eddy, a solar astronomer famed for his studies of irregular variations in solar activity and their connections with Earth’s climate, died on June 10, 2009. What was not captured in the obituaries we have seen was Dr. Eddy’s significance as one of the early leading lights in developing the interdisciplinary study of climate and global change research, and his role as a champion of bridging the gap between scientific research and public understanding. Here we present some notes written in remembrance by a few of his many colleagues and associates. |
post by Rick Piltz • comments may be sent to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
New York Times
June 17, 2009
John A. Eddy, Solar Detective, Dies at 78
John A. Eddy, a solar astronomer who studied the history of the sun and demonstrated that it is not a constant star with a regular cycle of behavior but rather one that has periods of anomaly, died June 10 in Tucson, where he lived….
In 1976, Dr. Eddy published an article in the journal Science in which he confirmed the speculative and largely unknown observations of 19th-century astronomers that for seven decades, from 1645 to 1715, the surface of the sun was inordinately calm, with the magnetic storms that often roil it — as indicated by the presence of sunspots — peculiarly absent.
Dr. Eddy called the peaceful interlude the Maunder Minimum, after E. W. Maunder, an English scientist who, along with a German, Gustav Spörer, first noted the presumed anomaly in the 1890s….
Daily Camera
Boulder, Colorado
...Dr. Eddy worked for 28 years as a teacher and research scientist at the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder and as a scientific visitor at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts; later as the founder and Director of the Office for Interdisciplinary Earth Studies at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research; as Chief Scientist and Vice President for Research at a consortium of universities and research institutions in Michigan; and as a founder and Editor, with his wife Barbara, of CONSEQUENCES, a scientific journal supported by five federal agencies to explain in popular terms the nature and eventual impacts of global environmental changes of all kinds….
Nature
“The Great Beyond” science news blog
June 15, 2009
The American astronomer Jack Eddy, famed for his studies on the connections between solar activity and terrestrial climate, died last Wednesday in Tucson, Arizona….
In a famous study published in 1976 in Science, Eddy demonstrated a link between unusually low solar activity and the coldest period of the so-called little ice age.
During the 1640-1710 ‘Maunder Minimum’ – a term Eddy coined in honour of the 19th century British astronomer Edward W. Maunder whose sunspot studies inspired his own work on sun-climate connections – Europe and North America experienced a series of exceptionally cold winters.
Irregular variations in the 11-year sunspot cycle are an endlessly appealing topic for all those who would rather believe that the sun – not fossil fuels – is driving current climate change.
Eddy distrusted wackiness in science, but he was well aware that his discoveries were alluring to obscurants.“There is a hypnotism about cycles that seems to attract people. It draws all kinds of creatures out of the woodwork,” he once told science historian Spencer Weart.
A brief history of his life and career can be found on wikipedia.
John Allen “Jack” Eddy
March 25, 1931 – June 10, 2009
Remembering Jack Eddy
Jack was not only a great Astronomer who has focused on solar science. He also inspired the global change program both at the national and international levels. His vision has been key in the development of international programs such as IGBP (International Geosphere Bisophere Programme). I remember the summer workshop that Jack organized in Snowmass, Colorado on Earth System Modeling. This topic is becoming central to many large climate and environmental research programs today.
Jack has also played a key role here at NCAR as a member of the High Altitude Observatory.
We will miss his vision and we will miss Jack as a friend and colleague. We should not forget his messages and his views.
Guy P. Brasseur
Associate Director
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
Boulder, ColoradoDirector of the Earth and Sun Systems Laboratory (ESSL)
One of Jack’s accomplishments that was not mentioned in the NY Times obituary is his work in conceptualizing and developing new publications about climate and global change. He was responsible for starting HumanDimensions while he was at CIESIN and then he started Consequences, which was an excellent publication, synthesizing the state of our knowledge about global change. He was always conscious of bridging the gap between basic research and public understanding and he could speak to people in both worlds.
Roberta Balstad, Ph.D.
Center for Research on Environmental Decisions
Columbia University
New York, New York
Editor-in-Chief, Weather, Climate, and Society, American Meteorological Society
I met Jack Eddy at a meeting in Lithuania in 1987 as the only other American there. It was a meeting for Lithuania to show off its environment and sustainable development plan (which translated from the Russian as “stability plan”). While we were there glasnost was complimented with peristroika, and we had long discussions of the significance of all of this with our Soviet colleagues.
Jack invited me to come to an Office for Interdisciplinary Earth Studies meeting in Colorado to discuss my previous work on ozone protection legislation. He offered me a position as Associate Director at OIES, an offer that I could not take at the time, but then engaged me as chair of the OIES board. This is where I had the pleasure of getting to know him very well. He was energetic, visionary and committed to using science to understand and identify solutions to major problems like climate change. Those were exciting times as Jack developed and convinced others of the importance of what he called “Earth Systems Science.” He also convinced me that I could make a shift in my career direction out of the lab to become a Policy Scientist. This is a change in direction that I have never regretted. His presence and insights will be missed by all who value science in the service of society.
Bill Moomaw
Prof. William Moomaw
Director
Center for International Environment and Resource Policy
The Fletcher School
Tufts University
Medford, Massachusetts
For those who have been connected with Global Change issues this is a sad loss indeed. Jack was one of the pioneers in Global Change Science and communicating the urgency to take action in the 1980’s. I had the immense pleasure to work with Jack as a post-doc and novice to global change in the 1988 to 1990 when we both created the research programs of the IGBP. He hosted me while I edited a workshop book on earth system modeling. We need to find more champions like Jack to find solutions to global change.
Dennis Ojima, PHD
Senior Scholar in Residence
The Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment
Washington DC
I worked a bit with Jack Eddy in the late 1980’s. He was generous, thoughtful, visionary. He inspired me and was one of the primary figures in interdisciplinary earth systems science helping to launch and structure major research agendas and promulgate a new way of thinking about Earth and global environmental change.
I met Jack Eddy I think in 1988. At that time, Rick Chappell, then at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and I were developing ideas for the founding of the Aspen Global Change Institute. Rick knew Jack and brought him into the discussion. In 1989 Jack agreed to serve with me and Rick on an organizing committee to explore the possibility of creating AGCI. Jack helped put together a dozen or so scientists and program officers to consider the merits of forming AGCI and its mission. Shelby Tilford was directing the Office of Earth Science at NASA and provided a planning grant that enabled us to get the group together in August of 1989 and work out the formation of AGCI. The discussions were very productive and we held our first summer of interdisciplinary sessions the next year.
Jack was the perfect person for this task. He championed interdisciplinary studies, particularly applied to earth systems, he knew an incredible range of people and as it turned out, the group he helped put together in 1989 led to the success of AGCI getting established. This group included Tom Malone, Berrien Moore, Paul Risser, and Richard Somerville.
At that time Jack was the director of the Office for Interdisciplinary Earth Studies at UCAR in Boulder. Among other tasks he organized annual interdisciplinary sessions in Snowmass which led to a number of books/reports covering a range of topics in global change. OIES published Earthquest—a quarterly that explored topics in ESS, programmatic issues of national and international efforts, and education and public outreach. Mid to late 1990’s he was the editor of the journal Consequences: The Nature and Implications of Environmental Change.
I’m sure others that knew him better can expand a great deal on his contribution to interdisciplinary global change research. For my brief encounter I was deeply impressed by his thoughtfulness, knowledge, and dedication to science and its role in society.
John Katzenberger
Director
Aspen Global Change Institute
Aspen, Colorado
As a new Congressional staffer for George Brown of California in the late 1980s, covering environment and energy issues for him, I was his point person on climate change. I became steeped in it in 1987, and quickly adopted it as my central career mission, as it has remained to this very day, 22 years later. I was privileged to be among those Hill staff invited by UCAR/NCAR to Colorado on several occasions to meet amongst climate scientists and policymakers to mull over how we were going to move forward on national policy to deal with the problem of global warming, and how best to talk to the media about it (a challenge we still grapple with!) Many icons of the climate science world were there; Jack Eddy was there too. I recall his friendliness, his ability to crack a joke with a wink and a smile, to be approachable, and very informative, and wise. He literally sparkled, and lit up the room. It was fun to be around him, and, of course, educational too: a fabulous combination for any human being. One day, I hope someone writes a biographical compendium of all of our climate luminaries (heroes)—Wally Broecker, Roger Revelle, John Firor, Walter Orr Roberts, George Woodwell, Francis Bretherton, Mario Molina, Charles Keeling, Bob Watson, Jack Eddy, and yes of course Robert (Bob) Corell. It’s an honor to have known Jack Eddy, albeit only briefly.
Anne Polansky
Senior Associate
Climate Science Watch
Government Accountability Project
Washington, DC
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): General • |
Funding for adaptation in the Waxman-Markey House-passed climate change cap and trade bill
Posted on Friday, June 26, 2009
In addition to creating a cap-and-trade system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and setting in motion a sustainable energy transformation, the Waxman-Markey “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,” which the U.S. House of Representatives approved today by a vote of 219-212, would earmark funding mechanisms for a wide variety of federal, state, local, and international activities to plan for enhancing resilience and adapting to the impacts of global climatic disruption. |
[Updated to reflect passage of the bill by the House June 26.]
H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, the greenhouse gas emissions cap and trade bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Cal.) and Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) to “create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy,” is the first major piece of climate change policy legislation to be approved by either house of Congress in the 20 years we have been dealing with the issues of climate change science and policy.
The bill contains lengthy passages that would create new law on developing “clean energy,” on improving energy efficiency, on “global warming pollution reduction” (a complex, long-term program centered on allocating emissions allowances under a declining cap), and adapting to climate change. “Adapting to Climate Change,” Subtitle E under Title IV of the bill, contains 155 pages that would create and provide for a panoply of climate change Adaptation programs in the federal government, which would also support both State-level and international adaptation planning and action.
Under the bill, funding for adaptation programs would come from revenue raised by:
(1) auctioning of specified percentages of the available emissions allowances each year by the federal government and designating the revenue for particular adaptation programs; and
(2) earmarking the allocation of specified percentages of allowances – which presumably could be sold in order to create a pool of funding – to support particular programs.
Five new programs for which federal funding would be authorized under these revenue streams, starting in 2012 and continuing through 2050, are:
(1) Domestic Adaptation – federal funding to states that develop approved climate change adaptation plans, according to a population/income formula, and also to tribal governments;
(2) Wildlife and Natural Resources Adaptation – federal funding to state wildlife and coastal management agencies according to formulas specified in current laws;
(3) Climate Change Public Health Fund – federal funding to federal agencies and to state, local, tribal, and foreign governments for preparing health systems to respond to the impacts of climate change;
(4) Natural Resources Climate Change Adaptation Fund – funding to federal agencies with responsibilities for natural resources, according to a percentage formula; and
(5) International Adaptation – bilateral and multilateral assistance to developing countries to support vulnerability assessments, climate change adaptation plans, capacity-building to reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience, and responding to destabilizing impacts.
There is a complex set of allocation formulas and program mandates and guidelines in the bill, which we will not explicate in detail here, but the bottom line is that support for Adaptation ramps up over time. Adding up all the pieces – percentage of the total allocation of emissions allowances plus percentage of designated allowance auction revenue—Adaptation would receive about 3% during the time period from 2012-2021, increase to about 6% from 2022-2026, and to about 12% from 2027-2050. No specific dollar amounts can be associated with these funding mechanisms in advance. The amounts of revenue will be contingent on the value of emissions allowances over time.
So, funding for a wide range of Adaptation planning and action, starting small as a percentage of the total cap and trade program, and ramping up over time. Certainly worth having. With the potential to be stepped up via future legislation, as well as provision of funding for Adaptation through other means outside the cap and trade system, which will surely be necessary and probably in very large amounts, as scientific understanding advances and as events unfold. And, of course, all potentially too little, too late.
This discussion of the climate legislation will be continued in subsequent posts.
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): Congress: Legislation and Oversight • |
Jim Hansen’s statements at Coal River Mountain protest against mountaintop removal
Posted on Thursday, June 25, 2009
“We must have a moratorium on new coal plants and phase out existing ones within the next 20 years.” said NASA climate scientist James Hansen at a June 23 rally in West Virginia protesting mountaintop removal for coal mining. “Coal from mountaintop removal provides only 7% of United States coal, less than the amount of coal that we export.” At the time he was arrested, Dr. Hansen was reading a Declaration of the protestors that begins: “When, in the course of their lives, people find that they are being abused by those in position of power, and their children and their children’s future are being damaged by those in power, it is the right of the people, and their sacred duty, to resist…” |
See our June 23 post: NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen arrested today for civil disobedience against WV coal mining
Dr. Hansen’s statement at a June 23 rally in West Virginia and the “June 23 Declaration” of the protestors that he was reading at the time of his arrest are posted with his comments on his Columbia University web site.
“Local pollution effects and regional environmental destruction should be enough to stop the practice of mountaintop removal,” Dr. Hansen says in comments on his Columbia University web site accompanying the West Virginia statements. “The bigger picture, including climate change, makes it clear that mountaintop removal, providing only 7 percent of United States coal, makes no strategic sense whatever….There has to be some leadership from the top. We cannot continue to give President Obama a pass on this much longer. On the other hand, he needs broad support in order to do what is right….”
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): Science-Policy Interaction • |
Climate change in our backyards: the Southeast
This third post in our series delving into Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, a landmark report issued June 16, highlights the climate consequences we can expect to see in the southeastern region of the US. This region is rich with culture, biodiversity, coastal and mountainous habitats, and a meandering coastline that twists and turns and harbors some of the most coveted beaches in the world. But all of this is now at risk of being harmed, even devastated, by the harsh conditions that climate change brings. The most severe impacts of climate change in the Southeast are most likely to be the projected increases in hurricane intensity and storm surge driven by rising air and ocean temperatures. Recent hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ike have given us a glimpse into such a future. But other serious impacts are in store for these southern states as well. See details.
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post by Anne Polansky and Alexa Jay • Send comments to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
A Changing Climate in the Southeastern US: Highlights and Implications for US Preparedness
Our last post focused on the northeastern region of the US; the other seven regions in the report include the Midwest, Great Plains, Southwest, Northwest, Alaska, Islands, and Coasts. The seven sectors discussed in the report are: Water Resources, Energy Supply and Use, Transportation, Agriculture, Ecosystems, Human Health, and Society.
Resources:
Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
USGCRP Fact Sheet for the Southeast
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS): Backgrounder on the Southeastern region
How is the climate changing in the southeastern US? - some things to consider:
The southeastern US is rich with culture, biodiversity, coastal and mountainous habitats, and a meandering coastline that twists and turns and harbors some of the most coveted beaches in the world. But all of this is now at risk of being harmed, even devastated, by the harsh conditions that climate change brings.
>> “The most severe impacts of climate change in the Southeast are likely to be the projected increases in hurricane intensity and storm surge driven by rising air and ocean temperatures.” We have already had a sampling of such a future with hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, and many others.
>> A hotter Southeast region also means “more heat-related illness; declines in forest growth and agricultural crop production due to the combined effects of heat stress and declining soil moisture; declines in cattle production; increased buckling of pavement and railways; and reduced oxygen levels in streams and lakes, leading to fish kills and declines in aquatic species diversity.”
>> “Decreased water availability due to increased temperature and longer periods of time between rainfall events, coupled with an increase in societal demand, is very likely to affect many sectors of the Southeast’s economy.”
>> The perceived high quality of life in the Southeast has contributed to its growing population in recent years. Both factors are likely to be affected by the many challenges associated with climate change, such as “reduced insurance availability, increased insurance cost, and increases in water scarcity, sea-level rise, extreme weather events, and heat stress.”
Some specifics:
Temperature Increases
• The region’s average annual temperature has risen by about 2° F since 1970, “with the greatest seasonal increase in temperature occurring during the winter months.”• “By the end of the century, average annual temperatures are projected to rise 4.5° F under a lower emissions scenario and 9° F under a higher emissions scenario.”
• “Effects of increased heat include more heat-related illness; declines in forest growth and agricultural crop production due to the combined effects of heat stress and declining soil moisture; declines in
cattle production; increased buckling of pavement and railways; and reduced oxygen levels in streams and lakes, leading to fish kills and declines in aquatic species diversity.”o “The warming projected for the Southeast during the next 50 to 100 years will create heat-related stress for people, agricultural crops, livestock, trees, transportation and other infrastructure, fish, and wildlife.”
o Temperature increases and spikes also translate to “increased illness and death due to greater summer heat stress, unless effective adaptation measures are implemented.”
o Southeastern states can also expect to see a “decline in forest growth and agricultural crop production due to the combined effects of thermal stress and declining soil moisture, increased buckling of pavement and railways, decline in dissolved oxygen in streams, lakes, and shallow aquatic habitats leading to fish kills and loss of aquatic species diversity, and decline in production of cattle and other rangeland livestock.”
Precipitation: Droughts and Flooding
• The Southeast has already experienced changes in the frequency, distribution, and intensity of precipitation, a trend that is expected to continue.
o “Average autumn precipitation has increased by 30 percent for the region since 1901; heavy downpours have increased in many parts of the region, and the percentage of the region experiencing moderate to severe drought has risen over the past three decades.”o Since the 1970s, “the area of moderate to severe spring and summer drought has increased by 12 percent and 14 percent, respectively. Even in the fall months, when precipitation tended to increase in most of the region, the extent of drought increased by 9 percent.”
o Climate models indicate that Gulf Coast states will tend to have less rainfall in winter and spring in relation to the more northern states in the region, and that droughts are likely to continue to increase in frequency, intensity, and duration.
• “Decreased water availability due to increased temperature and longer periods of time between rainfall events, coupled with an increase in societal demand is very likely to affect many sectors of the Southeast’s economy.”
Sea Level Rise, Hurricanes, Storm Surges, and Coastal Flooding
• Increased sea surface temperatures have been shown to make hurricanes more severe, and more energetic.
• The report notes that “the destructive potential of Atlantic hurricanes has increased since 1970, correlated with an increase in sea surface temperature,” and that “the intensity of hurricanes is likely to increase during this century with higher peak wind speeds, rainfall intensity, and storm surge height and strength” ... with an accompanying increase in “inland and coastal flooding, coastal erosion rates, wind damage to coastal forests, and wetland loss.”
• A rise in average sea levels of up to 2 feet coupled with projected increases in hurricane intensity and associated storm surge “are likely to be among the most costly consequences of climate change for this region.”
• Coastal vulnerability to hurricane damage is already quite high, and a rapid acceleration in the current rate of increase in sea level could further threaten a large portion of the Southeast coastal zone, exacerbating the “severe risk to people, personal property, and public infrastructure in the Southeast.”
• “Current buildings and infrastructure were not designed to withstand the intensity of the projected storm surge, which would cause catastrophic damage.”
The report talks about adaptive measures, and building in resiliency in Southeastern communities:
“Three different types of adaptation to sea-level rise are available for low-lying coastal areas. One is to move buildings and infrastructure farther inland to get out of the way of the rising sea. Another is to accommodate rising water through changes in building design and construction, such as elevating building on stilts…The third adaptation option is to try to protect existing development by building levees and river flood control structures…In addition to levees, enhancement of key highways used as hurricane evacuation routes and improved hurricane evacuation planning is a common adaptation underway in all Gulf Coast states. Other protection options that are being practiced along low-lying coasts include the enhancement and protection of natural features such as forested wetlands, saltmarshes, and barrier islands”
Ecosystem Responses
• On of the most troubling warnings in the report is that the effects of crossing an ecological threshold could “cascade among both living and physical systems” with potentially dire and possibly irreversible consequences.
• Some ecological responses to climate change are expected to proceed rapidly, resulting in abrupt disturbances to ecosystems and to the resources they provide to people. Examples include:
o “the sudden loss of coastal landforms that serve as a storm-surge barrier for natural resources and as a homeland for coastal communities (such as in a major hurricane);”
o “lower soil moisture and higher temperatures leading to intense wildfires or pest outbreaks in southeastern forests;”
o “intense droughts leading to the drying of lakes, ponds, and wetlands;”
o “local or global extinction of riparian and aquatic species.”
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): Assessments of Climate Impacts and Adaptation • |
Climate change in our backyards: the Northeast
Posted on Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Climate change impacts are already discernible in the US Northeast region, and are expected to worsen over time. The Northeast is projected to face continued warming and more extensive climate-related changes, some of which could dramatically alter the region’s economy, landscape, character, and quality of life. “Climate change is happening now, in our own backyards…. It affects all of us and the things we care about,” said climate scientist and NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco at a June 16 press briefing announcing the Obama administration’s release of the scientific assessment report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. This is the second in a series of CSW posts that will draw salient points from the report’s chapters, covering geographic regions and socioeconomic sectors, and will discuss some of the implications of the findings, primarily in terms of US planning and preparedness for a wide range of climate change consequences. |
post by Anne Polansky and Alexa Jay • Send comments to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
See our earlier post: “Global Climate Change Impacts in the US”—Report Overview (Part 1 of a series)
This post focuses on the northeastern region of the US; the other eight regions covered in the report are the Southeast, Midwest, Great Plains, Southwest, Northwest, Alaska, Islands, and Coasts. The seven sectors addressed in the report are: Water Resources, Energy Supply and Use, Transportation, Agriculture, Ecosystems, Human Health, and Society.
Source: Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. See the full, very-accessibly-written report for a more extensive discussion, including a substantial complement of graphics.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has assembled a useful set of backgrounders for this report that we have also drawn upon. Click here for the UCS backgrounder on the Northeast.
Climate change impacts in the US Northeast *
Climate change impacts are already discernible, and are expected to worsen over time: the Northeast is projected to face continued warming and more extensive climate-related changes, some of which could dramatically alter the region’s economy, landscape, character, and quality of life. Moreover, If current emission trends continue, mid-century and beyond could bring much shorter winters with fewer cold days and more precipitation, a halving in the length of the winter snow season across northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and a reduction of the snow season to a week or two in southern parts of the region. Under a higher emissions scenario, “by late this century, residents of New Hampshire would experience a summer climate more like what occurs today in North Carolina.”
Temperature Increases
• “Since 1970, the annual average temperature in the Northeast has increased by 2°F, with winter temperatures rising twice this much.”
• “Over the next several decades, temperatures in the Northeast are expected to rise an additional 2.5 - 4° F in winter, and 1.5 - 3.5° F in summer.”
• There are more frequent days with temperatures above 90° F, and projected for later this century, more frequent days with Ts above 100° F.
o “Cities that now experience few days above 100° F each summer would average 20 such days per summer.”
o “Cities such as Hartford and Philadelphia, would average nearly 30 days over 100° F.”
o “Extreme heat and declining air quality are likely to pose increasing problems for human health, especially in densely populated urban areas.”
• Rising water temperatures represent a serious threat to fisheries and natural fish populations.o Lobster fisheries have been migrating northward, while “lobster catches in the southern part of the region peaked in the mid-1990s, and have since declined sharply” in part due to a temperature-sensitive bacterial shell disease. Cod populations are also temperature-sensitive; “increases in average annual sea bottom temperatures above 47°F will lead to a decline in growth and survival.”
o “Over half of the wild trout populations are likely to disappear from the southern Appalachian Mountains because of the effects of warming stream temperatures.”
Precipitation: Droughts and Flooding
• Precipitation intensity is projected to increase everywhere, but droughts will also become more frequent and widespread.
• Short term (1-3 month) droughts “are projected to occur as frequently as once each summer in the Catskill and Adirondack mountains, and across the New England states.”
• When it does rain, it rains heavier than before:
o Heavy downpours can overload drainage systems and water treatment facilities, increasing the risk of water-borne diseases. Downpours can trigger sewage overflows, contaminating drinking water and heavy rains can lead to flooding, which can cause health impacts including direct injuries as well as increased incidence of water-borne diseases due to bacteria.
o Cities and towns that have older “combined sewer systems” (that carry storm water and sewage in the same pipes) such as New York, Washington DC, and Philadelphia, are at risk of overflowing and raw sewage spills into lakes or waterways, including where people swim, contaminating drinking water supplies with disease-causing bacteria. (In 2004, the EPA estimated it would cost $203 B to address these and other needs of publicly-owned wastewater treatment systems.
• In winter, there is less snow, more rain, and less snowpack.
• “Under a higher emissions scenario, the typical 100-year flood is projected to occur at least twice as often by mid-century, and 10 times as often (or once per decade on average) by late this century.”
Sea Level Rise, Storm Surges, and Coastal Flooding
• Most of the big cities in the Northeast are on coasts, rivers, or both.
• Sea level in the Northeast is projected to rise about 2 feet, with the potential for a much larger rise. Recent estimates of global sea-level rise projected within the century are 3 - 4 feet, but even a 2-foot rise in relative sea level over a century would result in the loss of a large portion of the nation’s remaining coastal wetlands.
• SLR “leads to substantial increases in the extent and frequency of storm surge, coastal flooding, erosion, property damage, and loss of wetlands.” It “adversely affects seagrasses, coral reefs, and other important ecosystems and habitats;” ...it “fragments barrier islands, and places into jeopardy existing homes, businesses, and infrastructure, including roads, ports, and water and sewage systems.”
“Low-lying and subsiding areas are most vulnerable.”• “The greatest damage occurs when sea-level rise, heavy runoff, high tides, and storms coincide.”
• “Severe flooding due to sea-level rise and heavy downpours is likely to occur more frequently.” Portions of major cities, including Boston and New York, would be subject to inundation by ocean water during storm surges or even during regular high tides.
• Much of the coastline is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of rising sea levels, with implications for the public’s ability to insure property: Homeowner’s insurance is getting more expensive and more difficult to obtain. For example, in New York, with over $2 trillion in insured coastal property, “some major insurers have withdrawn coverage from thousands of homeowners in coastal areas of the Northeast, including New York City.”
• The combined effects of sea-level rise and storm surge are projected to dramatically increase the frequency of flooding; what is currently called a 100-year storm is projected to occur as often as every 5 years.
o “Portions of lower Manhattan and coastal areas of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Nassau County, would experience a marked increase in flooding frequency.”
o “Much of the critical transportation infrastructure, including tunnels, subways, and airports, lies well within the range of projected storm surge and would be flooded during such events.”
Altered Seasons
• The growing season is longer (but agriculture and the thriving dairy industry is threatened)
• Breakup of winter ice on lakes and rivers occurs earlier in the year
• Climate projections indicate earlier spring snowmelt and spring runoff by as much as 14 days. Earlier runoff produces lower late-summer streamflows which stress human and environmental systems through less water availability and higher water temperatures.
• One huge potential casualty of an altered New England winter season is the impact it will have on winter recreation: winter snow and ice sports are a $7.6 billion/yr industry in this regional economy (alpine skiing and other snow sports account for $4.6 B, snowmobiling for the other $3 B). Ice skating and fishing, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and dog sledding (all integral to the character of the Northeast) will also be adversely affected with a shorter, warmer winter season, and will drive up costs as recreation areas will boost artificial snowmaking.
• Spring now arrives an average of 10 days to two weeks earlier than it did 20 years ago, altering when plants bud in spring, and when birds and other animals migrate. Many migratory bird species are
arriving earlier. Some mountain tree species have shifted uphill by 350 feet in the last 40 years. Cold-loving tree species have declined from 43 to 18 percent, while warmer-loving trees increase
from 57 to 82 percent. The composition of high-elevation forests is changing rapidly.
Effects on Agriculture
• Agricultural production, including dairy (the largest agricultural sector in the NE with an annual production worth $3.6 billion), fruit, and maple syrup, are likely to be adversely affected as favorable climates shift.
• Under a higher emissions scenario, “much of the Northeast is likely to become unsuitable for growing popular varieties of apples, blueberries, and cranberries.” “Fruits that require long winter chilling periods [many cumulative hours below 45ºF] will likely experience declines.”
• “Climate conditions suitable for map/beech/birch forests are projected to shift dramatically northward, eventually leaving only a small portion of the Northeast with a viable maple sugar business.”
• Heat stress and other factors could cause a decline in milk production of up to 20 percent or higher in parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Under a higher emissions scenario, late this century, “all but the northern parts of Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont are projected to suffer declines in July milk production.”
Effects on Transportation
• While warmer winters will reduce the need for snow and ice removal, and for salt and chemicals on roads and bridges, extend the construction season, and improve the mobility and safety of passenger and freight travel through reduced winter hazards, the downside is that “freeze-thaw conditions are likely to increase, creating frost heaves and potholes on road and bridge surfaces and resulting in load restrictions on certain roads to minimize the damage.”
Issues for Planning and Preparedness in Northeastern states
Most of the states in the Northeastern US have developed some sort of “climate change action plan” that addresses ways the state can take steps to reduce GHG emissions, only a few talk about adaptation (e.g. Maryland has thoroughly considered adaptation measures.)
Links for each Northeastern state’s primary website for climate change appears below (most obtained from the Center for Climate Strategies website.) A separate, sister post will provide examples of steps being taken to effectively plan and prepare for climate change impacts, and identify areas where much more attention needs to be focused in order to reduce vulnerability and risk, and build in additional resiliency to climate disruption.
West Virginia (Governor’s page on environment). There is no climate change action plan for WV.
(Instead, they blow up mountains and arrest climate scientists, see recent posts: here, and here.)
# # #
* CSW has clung very closely to the text of the report, exercising very little paraphrasing, predominantly lifting exact quotes from the report (in quotation marks) and rearranging and consolidating ideas to afford a succinct summary of impacts and longer term consequences presented in this chapter.
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): Assessments of Climate Impacts and Adaptation • |
“Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States” – Report Overview (Part 1 of a series)
Posted on Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, a scientifically based assessment report issued on June 16 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, with its focus on the likely impacts of climate change across the nation, has the potential to add a much-needed dimension to policy debates about the costs and benefits of mitigation and adaptation measures. The potentially devastating impacts of climate change on all aspects of human life have all-too-often been missing from discussions of climate change policy, which has emphasized mitigation options to reduce emissions while neglecting the need for strategies for adaptation and preparedness to deal with impacts that are already in evidence and projected to be much more damaging in the future. As the report authors note: “concerns about climate change impacts will almost certainly alter perceptions and valuations of energy technology alternatives.” (p. 54). |
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This is the first in a series on the report and issues it raises for the US level of preparedness for climate change consequences and impacts.
See our related posts:
Video link and key quotes from White House briefing on Global Climate Change Impacts report
President Obama should lead in talking about the consequences of inaction on climate change
The US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) has a brand new website, launched on June 16, 2009, the day of release of the impacts report:
U.S. Global Change Research Program
The impacts report is posted there, along with supporting materials: Impacts report home page, with a link to download the full report (.pdf), and a 20-page highlights brochure
Meanwhile, the former USGCRP/CCSP website, containing the full set of 21 Synthesis and Assessment Products generated under the Bush administration and other relevant reports and materials, is still open and accessible.
REPORT OVERVIEW
Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States synthesizes information from a number of other publications, chiefly the 21 Synthesis and Assessment Products sponsored by the Climate Change Science Program* (CCSP), in an attempt to outline the state of knowledge about current and future impacts of global climate change on ecosystems and the human systems in the United States that depend on them.
As scientific consensus about the occurrence and anthropogenic origins of climate change has solidified, the focus of some climate research is beginning to shift. Throughout its 20-year history, the federal climate research program has focused primarily on observing and modeling change in the physical climate system. The program’s annual report for FY2009, Our Changing Planet, notes that as our understanding of the global climate system has sharpened, interest in the local and regional impacts of climate change is growing. These concerns are reflected in the program’s Goals 4 and 5, which aim to, respectively: understand the sensitivity and adaptability of different natural and managed ecosystems and human systems to climate and related global changes, and explore the uses and identify the limits of evolving knowledge to manage risks and opportunities related to climate variability and change.
Accordingly, the USGCRP climate change impacts report lays out current knowledge on the present and future impacts of climate change on US ecosystems, public health, and built environments. The report does not advocate particular mitigation or adaptation strategies nor project the results of any particular policy solution; it rather presents the future implications of current and projected rates of greenhouse gas emissions under scenarios that employ varying assumptions about population, economic activity, choice of energy technologies, and other factors.
The report says these scenarios “cover a range of emissions of heat-trapping gases, and the associated climate projections illustrate that lower emissions result in less climate change and thus reduced impacts over this century and beyond. Under all scenarios considered in this report, however, relatively large and sustained changes in many aspects of climate are projected by the middle of the century, with even larger changes by the end of this century, especially under higher emissions scenarios” (p. 10).
Although the existence and projected continuation of a global warming trend is well-supported, the impacts of climate change on smaller geographical scales are only roughly understood. Due to a number of factors, including uncertainties about climate sensitivity to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, positive climate feedback effects, and the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and the human-built environment, further studies on local and regional impacts are very much needed. The USGCRP report makes this explicit in the “Agenda for Climate Impacts Science” section, noting that while “advancing our knowledge in the many aspects of science that affect the climate system has already contributed greatly to decision making on climate change issues,” the focus of their recommendations is on “advancing our knowledge specifically on climate change impacts and those aspects of climate change responsible for these impacts in order to continue to guide decision making” (p. 153).”
While the report makes the need for further studies of the local and regional impacts of climate change readily apparent, there is an equally pressing need for the development of an operational U.S. management infrastructure equipped to deal with the challenges posed to a range of human and natural systems by a rapidly changing climate. (However, the USGCRP, as it is currently configured and managed, is not the appropriate entity to lead or to orchestrate such an operational infrastructure within the federal government; we will stipulate and defend, in future posts, the need for new White House leadership and indeed a new coordination body to take on this ambitious but essential role of government.)
“Adaptation” in this context is defined in one of the CCSP’s 21 Synthesis and Assessment Products (SAPs) as “adjustments in human social systems (e.g., management) in response to climate stimuli and their effects” (CCSP SAP 4.4, p. 1). Another of the SAPs identifies two related decision-making/management strategies that may be especially useful in the face of high uncertainty: “resilient” strategies that “try to identify the range of future circumstances that one might face, and then seek to identify approaches that work reasonably well across that range,” and “adaptive” strategies that “can be modified to achieve better performance as one learns more about the issues at hand and how the future is unfolding.” (CCSP SAP 5.2; p. 115-116).
The authors of the recent USGCRP impacts report refer frequently to “decision makers” and their need to be supplied with information about the changing climate on multiple scales: “these effects are very likely to be relevant for energy policies, decisions, and institutions in the United States, affecting courses of action and appropriate strategies for risk management” (54). But the gap between scientific information and policy with respect to climate change adaptation has yet to be bridged. As decision makers and managers at all levels consider strategies of this nature, they will be better equipped to apprise both researchers and elected officials of the data and resources needed for local adaptive responses. This should offer an opportunity to strengthen the partnership between research and management that is so crucial in addressing an unprecedented and constantly evolving challenge.
The report takes some important steps towards advancing a more holistic understanding of the challenges presented by a warming climate, emphasizing the interconnectedness of impacts on human and natural systems.
Subsequent posts in this series will highlight projected impacts at the regional level nationwide, as well as in several key socioeconomic sectors, and begin to examine a variety of issues relating to “planning and preparedness” in communities across the nation, and associated “adaptation” and “mitigation” responses at the local and regional level.
# # #
* The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) coordinates and integrates federal research on changes in the global environment and their implications for society. The USGCRP began as a presidential initiative in 1989 and was mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606), which called for “a comprehensive and integrated United States research program which will assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.” Thirteen departments and agencies participate in the USGCRP, which was known as the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) from 2002 through 2008.
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): Assessments of Climate Impacts and Adaptation • |
NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen arrested today for civil disobedience against WV coal mining
Breaking news…. Along with actress Daryl Hannah, 94-year old former US Congressman Ken Hechler, coal mining activist Judy Bonds, and dozens of others protesting mountaintop removal for coal mining, Dr. James Hansen was arrested this afternoon for trespassing onto the private property of Massey Energy Company in Coal River Valley, West Virginia. Hansen is slated to debate Massey CEO Don Blankenship tomorrow on climate change and coal burning (see yesterday’s post). Now it is unclear whether the debate will proceed; Blankenship has not confirmed despite his instigating challenge to Hansen late last week, nor has Massey issued a statement about the arrest. Media links below. |
post by Anne Polansky
UPDATE 7:30 pm. We are told by the Rainforest Action Network that all of the protesters have been released and are fine. They were charged with two misdemeanors—obstruction, and impeding traffic. We are also told that the prospects of a debate between Hansen and Blankenship tomorrow are dim. Blankenship is insisting on a THURSDAY evening June 25, 7 pm time slot on a local television station that, allegedly, Blankenship owns shares in and has an affiliation with. Most likely Hansen, Hannah, and the others who traveled to WV will need to depart tomorrow afternoon. It’s unclear whether or not Hansen will address the public directly as he said he would earlier.
Update: West Virginia Media has invited Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship and NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hansen to share their thoughts on global warming, climate change, the potential environmental impact of coal-fired power plants and coal mining during a live, televised debate. If the participants agree, the debate will air at 7 p.m. Thursday across the state on West Virginia Media stations. (Let’s hope Mr. Blankenship has the courage to make good on his challenge!)
Jim Hansen shortly before being arrested today, reading a statement for Massey Energy Co.
Jim Hansen with another protester, Susan Rosenberg
Photo credit & more photos at Rainforest Action Network
See yesterday’s CSW post: Dr. James Hansen agrees to debate a major coal mining company CEO in West Virginia
Media coverage:
New York Times Dot.Earth (Revkin): Hansen of NASA Arrested in Coal Country
Daily Kos (on the recommended list, 6 pm, 6-23-09: James Hansen and Daryl Hannah Arrested in MTR Protest
AP: Darryl Hannah, scientist arrested at W.Va. protest
San Francisco Chronicle: Daryl Hannah arrested in green protest
West Virginia Media: BREAKING NEWS: Ken Hechler; Daryl Hannah Arrested at Mine Protest
~ ~ ~
Long time coal mining activist Judy Bonds was one of those arrested. She comes to Washington DC often to speak out against the devastating practice of mountaintop removal.
A website with her biography has this quote:
“In Southern West Virginia we live in a war zone.
Three and one-half million pounds of explosives are being used every day to blow up the mountains.
Blasting our communities, blasting our homes, poisoning us, trying to intimidate us.
I don’t mind being poor.
I mind being blasted and poisoned.
NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen arrested today for civil disobedience against WV coal mining
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): Whistleblowers • |
Letter to Congress from 22 environmental groups in support of cap-and-trade bill, preparedness
22 national environmental organizations, representing millions of members, sent a letter June 22 to members of the House of Representatives urging a vote in support of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, the Waxman-Markey greenhouse gas emissions cap and trade bill currently set for House floor debate on June 26. The groups urged that the bill be strengthened between now and final passage, including “amendments that increase investments that help…prepare for the impacts of climate change to natural resources and vulnerable communities that can no longer be avoided.” See Details for full text and list of signers. |
We are pleased to see the language of preparedness, which we have steadily emphasized as a key component of any meaningful climate policy, moving forward in the public discussion.
The letter:
The Alliance for Climate Protection * American Rivers
Center for American Progress Action Fund * Clean Water Action
Climate Solutions * Defenders of Wildlife * Environment America
Environmental Defense Fund * Environmental Law & Policy Center
Interfaith Power and Light (IPL) * League of Conservation Voters
National Audubon Society * The National Hispanic Environmental Council (NHEC)
National Wildlife Federation * Natural Resources Defense Council * Oceana
Oxfam America * Pew Environment Group * Sierra Club
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
The Wilderness Society * Union of Concerned Scientists
June 22, 2009
House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515
Dear Representative:
On behalf of the millions of members and volunteers that our organizations represent, we write to urge you to support final passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES).
We also urge you to do everything possible to strengthen the bill between now and final passage, and along its journey to the President’s desk.
ACES will help build America’s clean energy economy and launch the United States’ first national plan of action to address the growing threat of climate change. ACES offers our country the most important opportunity in generations to jumpstart our economy, create millions of new, well-paying jobs, and set the stage for America to compete and prosper in a 21st century economy.
We believe this is one of the most important votes of our time. There are rare moments in American history when the urgency to act is clear, the stakes are high, the costs of inaction are untenable, and the need for courageous leadership is paramount. Now is one of those moments. An opportunity like this may not come again for many years.
ACES will deliver important benefits for consumers, workers, and businesses, while protecting public health, national security, and the parks, forests, and coastlines that define America’s natural heritage. Specifically:
• ACES launches the first national plan of action to address climate change. The legislation includes a steadily declining cap to reduce pollution from major sources such as power plants and oil refineries, and launches a new, large-scale program to protect tropical forests. The legislation includes a clear scientific process for evaluating the plan over time and recommending updates.
• ACES creates and funds programs to helps states, communities, public health officials and wildlife professionals prepare for and respond to those impacts of climate change that can no longer be avoided.
• ACES includes an energy efficiency plan that includes new standards and incentives to use smarter energy technologies and save energy where we live and work. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy estimates that ACES will save consumers billions of dollars annually on energy bills.
• ACES creates new incentives for clean energy and provides states with allowances worth billions of dollars annually to promote energy efficiency and clean energy in every part of the nation and in all communities, with specific measures targeted at low-income communities. The Center for American Progress estimates that, combined with the already-enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, ACES can help create 1.7 million clean energy jobs.
• ACES includes several important programs to save oil by investing in the next generation of vehicles, supporting the development of smarter transportation plans, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from heavy trucks, construction equipment, trains, and airplanes. In addition, it creates energy efficiency programs that will reduce oil consumption from homes and businesses.
• ACES delivers cleaner energy with an affordable framework that is fair to Americans across all income groups. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the 20% of households with lowest income in America will see an average net economic benefit of $40 annually. Overall, CBO estimates that the net cost to the average household will be under 50 cents per day, and this estimate doesn’t include the energy bill savings potential from the legislation’s energy efficiency measures.
• CBO has determined that ACES reduces the national budget deficit, lightening the financial load on future generations even as we begin to reduce the environmental debt we will leave behind.
The window of opportunity to act is short. Although ACES is just the beginning of an effective long-term national strategy on climate change, the science is clear that we must get started now and have already delayed far too long. By passing ACES, the House will create vital momentum for action this year by the Senate and the President, as well as for global action. As we approach the December 2009 deadline for climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark, we must show the world the U.S. is ready to commit to action toward solving this global problem.
As ACES is considered on the floor, we urge that you oppose any amendments that weaken the bill’s clean energy incentives and environmental goals. We urge you to support amendments that strengthen the bill, particularly those that create more clean energy jobs with stronger renewable energy and energy efficiency provisions, as well as amendments that increase investments that help foster a fair and effective global agreement and help prepare for the impacts of climate change to natural resources and vulnerable communities that can no longer be avoided.
Most importantly, we urge that you vote “yes” on final passage to get started now on a national effort to address climate change, and that you reach out to your colleagues to build a strong coalition of support for a clean energy future.
Our members, partners and allies are mobilizing as never before to capture this historic opportunity. Now it’s time for Congress to act.
Sincerely,
The Alliance for Climate Protection
American Rivers
Center for American Progress Action Fund
Clean Water Action
Climate Solutions
Defenders of Wildlife
Environment America
Environmental Defense Fund
Environmental Law & Policy Center
Interfaith Power and Light (IPL)
League of Conservation Voters
National Audubon Society
The National Hispanic Environmental Council (NHEC)
National Wildlife Federation
Natural Resources Defense Council
Oceana
Oxfam America
Pew Environment Group
Sierra Club
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
The Wilderness Society
Union of Concerned Scientists
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): Climate Change Preparedness • Congress: Legislation and Oversight • |
Open Letter to the President and Members of Congress from 20 leading scientists and scholars
Posted on Monday, June 22, 2009
In an open letter to President Obama and Congress, 20 leading U.S. scientists and scholars “call attention to the large difference between what U.S. politics now seems capable of enacting and what scientists understand is necessary to prevent climatic disruption and protect the human future. We urge President Obama to exercise maximum personal leadership beginning now to ensure that the strongest possible legislation emerges from the Congress.” The letter says that policy objectives of limiting the buildup of carbon dioxide to 450 parts per million and the rise of global temperatures to less than 2 degrees Celsius “are inadequate to sustain the integrity of global climate and to hold the risk of ruinous climatic change to an acceptably low level.” See Details for full text and list of signers. |
THE WOODS HOLE RESEARCH CENTER
PO Box 296 ⋅ Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA
Telephone 508.540.9900 ⋅ Fax 508.540-9700 ⋅ whrc.org
An Open Letter to the President and Members of Congress
Strong Leadership Needed Now on Climate
Strong leadership by the United States will be required to move the nations of the world away from what scientists increasingly recognize as a rapidly developing global climatic catastrophe. That leadership requires the insight, energy and relentless attention of the President and no less vigorous interest from both houses of the U. S. Congress.
The Waxman-Markey bill now being considered by the Congress offers a powerful advance and must be enacted this year. But at its best it will be only a first step in the direction that scientists now recognize as necessary to protect local and regional climates. Our purpose is to call attention to the large difference between what U.S. politics now seems capable of enacting and what scientists understand is necessary to prevent climatic disruption and protect the human future. We urge President Obama to exercise maximum personal leadership beginning now to ensure that the strongest possible legislation emerges from the Congress.
New information arrives daily to confirm what many specialists have known for three decades: human-caused climatic disruption is serious, moving rapidly, and gaining momentum with every delay in correcting the trend. In 1992 more than 180 nations including the United States met in Rio de Janeiro, signed, and later ratified, the Framework Convention on Climate Change and in so doing agreed to “stabilize” the heat-trapping gases of the atmosphere at levels that will protect human interests and nature. We, the nations globally, have not been true to our word, and climate is moving out from under civilization rapidly. Major droughts on every continent are but one current symptom of the scale of the global environmental corruption now entrained.
In many political circles around the world, the view has taken hold that nations should endeavor both to limit the buildup of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas and a by-product of burning coal, oil and natural gas, to 450 parts per million and to limit the rise of global temperatures to less than 2°Celsius. We and many others are of the view that these objectives are inadequate to sustain the integrity of global climate and to hold the risk of ruinous climatic change to an acceptably low level. United States policy must provide a fully satisfactory U.S. contribution to global greenhouse gas reductions that move beyond these inadequate international limits.
It is essential that the Waxman-Markey bill, strengthened wherever possible and certainly not weakened, advance into law rapidly. It is also essential that it become the basis for a serious, continuing, and urgent effort on the part of the President to lead the American public into recognition of the scale of the climatic disruption so that the U.S. will embrace still stronger policies to do what we know from scientific investigation is necessary to prevent disastrous climatic alteration.
As we write, we see the unfolding Presidential effort to lead the nation in the area of universal health insurance. We urge the President to initiate an effort at least comparable in the area of climatic change. We recognize the difference in popularity of these two causes, but it is the essence of Presidential leadership to show the way even where adequate public awareness of the risks ahead may be lacking. Speaking in Germany recently, President Obama referred to climatic change as “a potentially cataclysmic disaster.” We agree and believe that message must be communicated and elaborated to the American people in time to assure strong, effective Congressional action in both houses of Congress this year.
The time for national action on climatic change is now. There has already been too much delay. The stakes are far too high to compromise the integrity of, and our responsibility for, prompt national action.
Signed
Dean Abrahamson, Professor Emeritus, Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Robert Costanza, Gordon and Lulie Gund Professor of Ecological Economics and Director, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, The University of Vermont
Peter H. Gleick, N.A.S; President, Pacific Institute, Oakland, California
Richard A. Houghton, Senior Scientist, Acting Director, The Woods Hole Research Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Ralph Keeling, Professor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
Donald Kennedy, President Emeritus and Bing Professor of Environmental Sciences, Emeritus, Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
Thomas Lovejoy, Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, Washington, D.C.
Michael MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs, Climate Institute, Washington, D.C.
Michael E. Mann, Director, The Earth System Science Center, Professor of Meteorology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park
Michael McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Science, Harvard University. Cambridge, MA
Steve Running, Professor, Director , Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group, Department of Ecosystem Science, Univ. of Montana, Missoula
William Schlesinger, President and Director, The Cary Institute of Ecosystems Studies, Millbrook, N.Y.
Stephen H. Schneider, Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies; Professor, Department of Biology, Stanford University
Richard C. J. Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
James Gustave Speth, Dean, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, New Haven, Connecticut
Lonnie G. Thompson, Distinguished University Professor, School of Earth Sciences; Senior Research Scientist, Byrd Polar Research Center. The Ohio State University, Columbus
Warren Washington, Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
Richard S. Williams, Senior Scientist Emeritus, USGS; Visiting Senior Scientist, The Woods Hole Research Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Timothy E. Wirth, President, The United Nations Foundation, Washington, D.C.; former US Senator from Colorado
George M. Woodwell *, Director Emeritus, Senior Scientist, The Woods Hole Research Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
———————————————————-
* to whom correspondence should be addressed
(Organizations identified for identification purposes only; names listed in alphabetical order.)
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): Congress: Legislation and Oversight • Science-Policy Interaction • |
Dr. James Hansen agrees to debate a major coal mining company CEO in West Virginia
Last week the President and CEO of Massey Energy, Don Blankenship, when he learned Dr. James Hansen would be joining protesters tomorrow in a demonstration against mountaintop removal for coal mining, publicly challenged Hansen to a debate on coal burning and climate change. Along with hundreds of others, Hansen is headed to West Virginia to participate in tomorrow’s demonstration, and is expected to risk arrest by marching with protesters to the private property of Massey Energy to make a set of demands. Hansen took Blankenship up on the offer. (We hope the debate goes forward and that someone records it!) |
Post by Anne Polansky (comments may be emailed to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
The “Coal Tattoo” blog on the West Virginia Gazette announced last week that Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Company, upon learning that Jim Hansen would be participating in a major civil disobedience action protesting mountain top removal tomorrow (June 23), challenged him to a public debate on the topic of coal burning and climate change.
Hansen announced today he’s taking the Massey executive up on his offer, and will even one-up him: if Blankenship is a no-show, Hansen will address the public anyway, on Wednesday June 24 (location TBD).
Blankenship said: “I’m more than willing to invite Dr. Hansen to have a factual discussion about coal mining in West Virginia, which provides thousands of jobs in the state and provides low-cost energy to millions of Americans. I look forward to hearing from Dr. Hansen, as I’m sure a productive dialogue – not publicity arrests – is what Dr. Hansen, a university professor who values an exchange of ideas, surely, must desire.”
Blankenship was appointed Chairman and CEO of A.T. Massey Coal Company in 1992. “Under Blankenship’s direction and leadership, the period of growth continued and accelerated with several acquisitions taking place and a number of mining subsidiaries being established,” according to the company website. He’s been clear about his position on global climate change. Like Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), he doesn’t “believe in it.” This YouTube clip sums it up:
Massey’s website declares:
Today, Massey produces, processes, and sells bituminous coal of steam and metallurgical grades, primarily of low sulfur content, through its 22 processing and shipping centers, called “resource groups,“many of which receive coal from multiple coal mines. Massey currently operates 35 underground mines and 12 surface mines in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia.
Later this year, Massey announced plans to aggressively expand its operations in Central Appalachia. Several new mines are scheduled to be opened and existing mines are being expanded through projects beginning in 2007 and continuing through 2009. Total coal production is planned to increase from approximately 40 million tons in 2007 to approximately 50 million tons in 2010.
It’s the 10% growth per year and all the additional planned mining that has local citizens and advocates for sensible climate change policy up in arms. That, and a not-so-hot environmental record.
Under the category “Environmental Performance” Massey brags:
In 2007, we focused our efforts on improving our environmental performance. As a result of our intense focus on exceeding environmental requirements, our company’s subsidiaries achieved a 36 percent reduction in citations from state regulatory agencies.
Our Logan County Mine Services resource group – winner of Massey’s coveted Green Miner Award for 2007 – led the company with a 70 percent reduction in violations from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
Massey continues to devote time and resources to mitigation efforts and community improvement projects. For example, Massey donated the land to facilitate the construction of the Earl Ray Tomblin Center, a conference and meeting facility, in Logan, West Virginia and created both Indian Rock Creek Park near Craigsville, West Virginia and Grant’s Branch Park in Stone, Kentucky, recreational areas frequently utilized by local residents. Massey Members, financial contributions, and equipment have also supported a variety of highway and stream clean-up efforts.
So, a reduction in actionable offenses and a couple of recreational areas is what the Massey Energy Company wishes to offer up as evidence of good environmental stewardship?
In 1988 Hansen was the first scientist to testify before Congress that an observable global warming was underway. In recent years, he has decided to take his climate science to the streets. He appears to have made a solid leap into the world of direct action and civil disobedience, in opposition to coal burning. He has already participated in several public protests, including one this past March at a coal facility near Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. He has petitioned world leaders, including President Obama, to place a moratorium on all new coal-fired power plants absent carbon sequestration. He has called the trains carrying coal to power plants “death trains” and coal-fired power plants “factories of death.” (See his editorial, “Sword of Damocles”:
Hansen is not alone. Another familiar climate change icon has spoken on this:
“Mountaintop removal is a crime—and ought to be treated as a crime.” —Al Gore
Tomorrow, June 23—along with actress Daryl Hannah (see “Big names expected to take on big coal”)— Hansen will be in West Virginia to participate in a non-violent civil disobedience (NVCD) action. Hundreds of people are expected to show up at Marsh Fork Elementary School, which sits adjacent a mountain top removal site and 400 yards away from a three-billion-gallon coal slurry impoundment, very similar to the one that burst at a TVA coal fired power plant near Kingston, Tennessee (see our post). From the school the protesters will walk, peacefully, to the nearby Massey Energy offices to deliver a list of demands. They plan to risk arrest by trespassing on company property in order to be heard.
Marsh Fork Elementary School on Coal River Road in Naoma, Virginia
Hansen’s letter to Blankenship:
June 22, 2009
Dear Don,Thanks for your offer to publicly discuss climate change, human-made global warming, and its implications for the coal industry in general and mountaintop removal in particular. That is an excellent suggestion. I would be glad to participate in a format that allows the public to become better acquainted with the science and its implications.
I had planned to return to a meeting in Washington immediately after the activities at your place on Tuesday, but to accommodate a public discussion, I will stay another day. I expect that we will be able to find a school auditorium that would be well-suited for presentations and discussion. I am scouting that out now and will get back to you with specific information.
Usually I spend close to an hour on a climate science discussion for the public, but I can shorten that to about 40 minutes, so that you can have a similar time to present your views, if you would like that much time. You are welcome to speak either before or after me. After we have both spoken, we can open it up for discussion with the public.
If for any reason you are unable to find time for this discussion on Wednesday, I will give my talk anyhow. Hopefully the public will then be able to get back to you with information and questions about how your practices relate to climate, the environment, and the future that will be faced by young people and future generations.
Thanks again for your helpful suggestion. I very much agree on the importance of reaching out to the public and increasing public understanding of scientific matters.
Sincerely,
Jim Hansen
Related News:
A group of NGOs, including Coal River Mountain Watch that is helping to organize the demonstration, has filed a petition with the US Environmental Protection Agency to take back control of West Virginia’s Clean Water Act authority over wastewater management.
The US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife, is scheduled to hold a hearing this Thursday June 24 on “The Impacts of Mountaintop Removal Mining on Water Quality in Appalachia.”
Cross-posted on Daily Kos, 6-23-09
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The above entry is posted under the following topic(s): Science-Policy Interaction • |