Category Archives: climate change

climate change, energy policy, national ocean politics, natural resource management

Think Progress: Scientist: “Miami, As We Know It Today, Is Doomed. It’s Not a Question If. It’s a Question of When.”

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http://thinkprogress.org/climate/issue/?mobile=nc

This is my favorite new site with great coverage of all things climate change. DV

Scientist: ‘Miami, As We Know It Today, Is Doomed. It’s Not A Question Of If. It’s A Question Of When.’

By Joe Romm on Jun 23, 2013 at 12:40 pm

miami

Jeff Goodell has a must-read piece in Rolling Stone, “Goodbye, Miami: By century’s end, rising sea levels will turn the nation’s urban fantasyland into an American Atlantis. But long before the city is completely underwater, chaos will begin.”

Goodell has talked to many of the leading experts on Miami including Harold Wanless, chair of University of Miami’s geological sciences, department, source of the headline quote. The reason climate change dooms Miami is a combination of sea level rise, the inevitability of ever more severe storms and storm surges — and its fateful, fatal geology and topology, which puts “more than $416 billion in assets at risk to storm-related flooding and sea-level rise”:

South Florida has two big problems. The first is its remarkably flat topography. Half the area that surrounds Miami is less than five feet above sea level. Its highest natural elevation, a limestone ridge that runs from Palm Beach to just south of the city, averages a scant 12 feet. With just three feet of sea-level rise, more than a third of southern Florida will vanish; at six feet, more than half will be gone; if the seas rise 12 feet, South Florida will be little more than an isolated archipelago surrounded by abandoned buildings and crumbling overpasses. And the waters won’t just come in from the east – because the region is so flat, rising seas will come in nearly as fast from the west too, through the Everglades.

Even worse, South Florida sits above a vast and porous limestone plateau. “Imagine Swiss cheese, and you’ll have a pretty good idea what the rock under southern Florida looks like,” says Glenn Landers, a senior engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This means water moves around easily – it seeps into yards at high tide, bubbles up on golf courses, flows through underground caverns, corrodes building foundations from below. “Conventional sea walls and barriers are not effective here,” says Robert Daoust, an ecologist at ARCADIS, a Dutch firm that specializes in engineering solutions to rising seas.

The latest research “suggests that sea level could rise more than six feet by the end of the century,” as Goodell notes, and “Wanless believes that it could continue rising a foot each decade after that.”

Prudence dictates we plan for the plausible worst case. Coastal studies experts told the NY Times back in 2010, “For coastal management purposes, a [sea level] rise of 7 feet (2 meters) should be utilized for planning major infrastructure.”

Unfortunately, sea level rise is already 60% faster than projected. Goodell reports:

“With six feet of sea-level rise, South Florida is toast,” says Tom Gustafson, a former Florida speaker of the House and a climate-change-policy advocate. Even if we cut carbon pollution overnight, it won’t save us. Ohio State glaciologist Jason Box has said he believes we already have 70 feet of sea-level rise baked into the system.

Certainly without sharp cuts in CO2 starting ASAP, Jason Box is correct (see “Manmade Carbon Pollution Has Already Put Us On Track For 69 Feet Of Sea Level Rise”).

So we need a combination of aggressive mitigation combined with massive spending to develop completely new adaptation solutions for Miami to have any serious chance of surviving this century intact.

Sadly, Florida is one of the last places in the country where such action and planning can be expected:
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Those solutions are not likely to be forthcoming from the political realm. The statehouse in Tallahassee is a monument to climate-change denial. “You can’t even say the words ‘climate change’ on the House floor without being run out of the building,” says Gustafson. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, positioning himself for a run at the presidency in 2016, is another denier, still trotting out the tired old argument that “no matter how many job-killing­ laws we pass, our government can’t control the weather.” Gov. Rick Scott, a Tea Party Republican, says he’s “not convinced” that global warming is caused by human beings. Since taking office in 2011, Scott has targeted environmental protections of every sort and slashed the budget of the South Florida Water Management District, the agency in charge of managing water supply in the region, as well as restoration of the Everglades. “There is no serious thinking, no serious planning, about any of this going on at the state level,” says Chuck Watson, a disaster-­impact analyst with longtime experience in Florida. “The view is, ‘Well, if it gets real bad, the federal government will bail us out.’ It is beyond denial; it is flat-out delusional.”

Goodell’s whole article is worth reading, not just for the sober view of what South Florida faces but also for the beautiful writing:

When it rains in Miami, it’s spooky. Blue sky vanishes and suddenly water is everywhere, pooling in streets, flooding parking lots, turning intersections into submarine crossings. Even for a nonbeliever like me, it feels biblical, as if God were punishing the good citizens of Miami Beach for spending too much time on the dance floor. At Alton Road and 10th Street, we watched a woman in a Toyota stall at a traffic light as water rose up to the doors. A man waded out to help her, water up to his knees. This flooding has gotten worse with each passing year, happening not only after torrential rainstorms but during high tides, too, when rising sea water backs up through the city’s antiquated drainage system. Wanless, 71, who drives an SUV that is littered with research equipment, notebooks and mud, shook his head with pity. “This is what global warming looks like,” he explained. “If you live in South Florida and you’re not building a boat, you’re not facing reality.”

clean energy, climate change, energy policy, fossil fuels, Keystone XL, national ocean politics, natural resource management, offshore oil, renewable energy

Common Dreams: Critics: Obama’s Plan Fails Urgency Climate Crisis Demands

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/06/25-7
Published on Tuesday, June 25, 2013 by Common Dreams

President should renounce “all of the above” energy strategy and nation’s reliance on dirty fossil fuels, say environmentalists
– Sarah Lazare, staff writer

At a Tuesday George Washington University speech on climate change, President Obama is feeling the heat (Photo: Charles Dharapak/The Associated Press)Environmentalists warn that President Obama’s ‘climate plan’—announced Tuesday in a speech at Georgetown University—does not contain the urgency required by the fast-spiraling crisis of global warming and climate change and that though some aspects were welcome, the overall approach falls well short of what’s needed.

The plan hinges on Obama’s claim that he plans to use his presidential powers to override a Congress under ‘partisan deadlock’ and order the Environmental Protection Agency to impose carbon emissions limits on current and new power plants.

Though many of the large green groups in the US praised the push for tighter regulation on coal plants by the EPA, critics say Obama’s plan is unclear about exactly how strict these regulations will be. As an example, the president’s plan says that the EPA must be “flexible” to states’ needs, a vague directive that critics charge provides rhetorical cover for further inaction.

Furthermore, critics charge that “new” power plant regulations are hardly groundbreaking or far-reaching enough to meet the demands of the crisis. The 2007 Clean Air Act already empowered the EPA to regulate emissions for new facilities, and yet this has done little to reign in power plant emissions, which account for approximately 40 percent of U.S. carbon emissions.

The president’s only new step on this front is to propose regulations for existing plants, but critics worry that an administration that has dragged its feet so far will not make the necessary headway.

“He promised today to do something, but there is zero guarantee that he will follow through,” declared Bill Snape, senior counsel to the Center for Biological Diversity. “In reality there are so many industrial sources that need to be regulated, and the administration has been moving very slowly on all of them. It is wise to not fall prey to the flowery rhetoric. You have to really specifically look at concrete action.”

Friends of the Earth welcomed aspects of the Obama approach but said it was not the “broad, ambitious plan that is needed to combat climate change and extreme weather,” but rather a more tepid “series of actions” joined by flowery rhetoric.

“A sensible climate plan,” said Damon Moglen, climate and energy program director of Friends of the Earth, “would include a renunciation of the president’s “all of the above” energy strategy, which promotes biofuels, so-called clean coal, natural gas and dirty and dangerous nuclear power.”

“In order to address climate change,” he continued, “the president needs to focus on the ambitious development of renewable energy, energy storage and efficiency technologies while setting us on a path which clearly leaves behind the fossil fuel-based energy economy of the 20th century.”

And Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen agreed, saying that though Obama’s speech contained laudable elements there was too much that in the plan that would be “counterproductive.”

The important critique, Weissman said, was this:

Catastrophic climate change poses a near-existential threat to humanity. We need a national mobilization – and indeed a worldwide mobilization – to transform rapidly from our fossil fuel-reliant past and present to a clean energy future. We need a sense of urgency – indeed, emergency – massive investments, tough and specific standards and binding rules. Those elements, sadly, are missing from the president’s plan.

A sensible climate plan would include a renunciation of the president’s “all of the above” energy strategy, which promotes biofuels, so-called clean coal, natural gas and dirty and dangerous nuclear power. In order to address climate change, the president needs to focus on the ambitious development of renewable energy, energy storage and efficiency technologies while setting us on a path which clearly leaves behind the fossil fuel-based energy economy of the 20th century. – See more at: http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2013-06-statement-on-president-obamas-climate-plan#sthash.kuzIgVkf.dpuf
he broad, ambitious plan that is needed to combat climate change and extreme weather. – See more at: http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2013-06-statement-on-president-obamas-climate-plan#sthash.kuzIgVkf.dpuf
he broad, ambitious plan that is needed to combat climate change and extreme weather. – See more at: http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2013-06-statement-on-president-obamas-climate-plan#sthash.kuzIgVkf.dpuf
he broad, ambitious plan that is needed to combat climate change and extreme weather. – See more at: http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2013-06-statement-on-president-obamas-climate-plan#sthash.kuzIgVkf.dpuf
he broad, ambitious plan that is needed to combat climate change and extreme weather. – See more at: http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2013-06-statement-on-president-obamas-climate-plan#sthash.kuzIgVkf.dpuf

On the issue of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, Obame remained nearly silent. He declared that the Administration would only move forward if it determines the pipeline is ‘in our national interest’ but did not respond to widespread demands that the project immediately halt.

The president plans to vigorously pursue nuclear energy, he states in his official climate plan. Greenpeace activists have previously slammed an approach that they say embraces unsafe energy while escalating global nuclear buildup. Greenpeace USA’s Executive Director Phil Radford declared at a previous presidential speech:

President Obama’s energy policy has already been riddled with disasters, so it’s astounding that he would encourage even greater dependence on dangerous energy sources like oil drilling and nuclear power at a time when the risks have been made all too clear. For the millions of Americans put at risk by the inherent dangers of nuclear power, or those whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the Gulf oil disaster, more of the same is hardly the path toward ‘Energy Security.’ True leadership in the face of these disasters would mean setting out an energy plan that would move us away from our dependence on fossil fuels and dangerous nuclear power and instead harnessing abundant, safe and clean renewable energy.

President Obama declared that the United States must be a ‘global leader’ and work with the private industry to curb the carbon emissions of ‘developing’ nations. This is despite the fact that the Global North, with only 15 percent of the world’s population, accounts for 70 percent of greenhouse gases, and the U.S. is the second largest contributor to greenhouse gases in the world.

The president announced that he will stop providing federal dollars to build foreign coal-powered plants, unless they are ‘clean’ coal plants, or unless that country has no other viable energy option. Yet, critics charge that the concept of ‘clean’ coal is a myth.

Furthermore, he stated his intentions to expand natural gas use, including the controversial and highly polluting drilling practice known as fracking. Public Citizen’s Energy Program Director Tyson Slocum slammed this move:

His focus on fossil fuel exports – including the explicit promotion of LNG (liquefied natural gas) and his failure to curtail coal exports – threatens to undo the positive elements of the plan. By promoting LNG, the administration is moving full-speed-ahead on fracking, with no mention of how to control fugitive emissions, water contamination and other environmental problems posed by the controversial process.

The president appeared to embrace the role of private industry in curbing environmental disaster, praising large multinationals including WalMart and General Motors for ‘voluntarily’ decreasing their carbon emissions.

While many environmental groups expressed skepticism that the president’s plan will bring about real change, they praised broad, global social movements for pushing the debate even this far.

“We’re happy to see the president finally addressing climate change but the plain truth is that what he’s proposing isn’t big enough, and doesn’t move fast enough, to match the terrifying magnitude of the climate crisis,” said Snape.

______________

clean energy, climate change, energy policy, fossil fuels, national ocean politics, natural resource management, offshore oil, renewable energy, sustainable energy

Common Dreams, Center for Biologic Diversity: Obama Climate Plan Not Enough to Meet Magnitude of Global Crisis

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http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2013/06/25-4

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 25, 2013 12:26 PM

CONTACT: Center for Biological Diversity
Tel: (520) 623.5252
center@biologicaldiversity.org

Proposal is a Modest Step But Pollution Cuts Insufficient to Prevent Dangers Predicted by Federal Scientists

WASHINGTON – June 25 – President Obama’s new climate plan takes modest steps toward reducing carbon pollution, but the strategy announced today will not cut emissions enough to prevent catastrophic warming and extreme weather dangers predicted by federal scientists. A key point in the president’s plan is a vague directive to the Environmental Protection Agency to establish carbon pollution standards for new and existing power plants — standards already required by law. The plan fails to address the Keystone XML pipeline, fracking on public lands and other dirty extreme-energy projects that could fatally undermine the climate change fight.

The Center for Biological Diversity today reiterated its call to halt Keystone XL immediately and establish a national pollution cap for carbon dioxide.

“We’re happy to see the president finally addressing climate change but the plain truth is that what he’s proposing isn’t big enough, and doesn’t move fast enough, to match the terrifying magnitude of the climate crisis,” said Bill Snape, the Center’s senior counsel.

Since Obama’s election in 2008, thousands of heat temperatures have been broken and headlines have been full of deadly floods and hurricanes, epic droughts and dire predictions from the president’s own scientists of more climate chaos to come if the crisis isn’t met with ambitious steps to reduce carbon pollution.

The pollution control measures announced by the president today are aimed at fulfilling his administration’s pledge to put the United States on the path to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 4 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. But such a reduction falls far short of what the U.S. pledged in the Kyoto Protocol and would not be enough to avert catastrophic temperature rises, according to climate scientists.

“The president, like all of us, needs to be able to look across the dinner table at his children and know he’s doing all he can to ensure they inherit a planet that’s healthy and livable,” Snape said. “This plan is a small step in the right direction but certainly begs for something bigger and bolder.”

By 2050, when today’s teenagers are in their 50s and 60s, climate change will be imposing harsh new problems on America unless deep pollution cuts are achieved, according to the draft National Climate Assessment, a federal scientific report released earlier this year:

Rising sea levels and increased risk of storm surges will threaten more than $1 trillion worth of buildings and infrastructure on the coasts.
An additional 4,300 people could be killed each year by health problems caused by increased ground-level ozone.
Yields of major U.S. crops will likely decline because of rising temperatures and increased drought and flooding.
The number of days with temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit could double, posing major health risks to children and the elderly.

To achieve the necessary emission reductions, the Center is urging the Obama administration to declare carbon dioxide a “criteria pollutant” under the Clean Air Act and set a national pollution cap for CO2at no greater than 350 parts per million (ppm). Many independent scientists have concluded that atmospheric CO2levels above 350 ppm will cause catastrophic global warming.

This “carbon cap” would not require new legislation. The Center is also urging pollution caps for six other greenhouse gases, including methane and nitrous oxide.

“Strong rhetoric and politically comfortable half-measures won’t achieve what scientists tell us must be done to address the climate problem,” said Snape. “The White House can’t punt on hard climate questions, from the carbon cap to Keystone XL, Arctic drilling and fracking on public lands. It’s time for strong action and strong leadership.”
###
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature – to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law, and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive.

climate change, energy policy, fossil fuels, Keystone XL, national ocean politics, natural resource management, Uncategorized

Union of Concerned Scientists: UCLA: Science, Democracy, and Community Decisions on Fracking–A Lewis M. Branscomb Forum

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http://www.ucsusa.org/center-for-science-and-democracy/events/community-decisions-on-fracking.html?autologin=true

Register for the Forum Today!

Register now to secure your spot for the live webcast of our Science, Democracy, and Community Decisions on Fracking Forum on July 25, 2:00 p.m. PDT, at UCLA.
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Dear DeeVon,

We’re less than a month away from our public forum at the University of California, Los Angeles. Don’t forget to register to secure your spot for the live webcast of this popular event!

Science, Democracy, and Community Decisions on Fracking
A Lewis M. Branscomb Forum
Date: Thursday, July 25
Time: 2:00-5:00 p.m. PDT/5:00-8:00 p.m. EDT
Location: UCLA

Register today!

Featured speakers will include: Felicia Marcus, chair of the California Water Resources Control Board; Tom Wilber, author of Under the Surface: Fracking, Fortunes, and the Fate of the Marcellus Shale and Shale Gas Review blog; Jose Bravo, executive director of Just Transition Alliance; and Todd Platts, former U.S. Representative (R-PA). Click here for the full line-up of speakers and program.

This event will be a unique opportunity to join leading thinkers and key stakeholders for a dynamic discussion about the state of the science around hydraulic fracturing, the state and federal policy landscape, and what citizens and policy makers need to know to make informed decisions oil and gas fracking.

We look forward to you joining us and contributing to the conversation!

Sincerely,
Andy Rosenberg signature.jpg
Andrew A. Rosenberg, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Science and Democracy
Union of Concerned Scientists

P.S. You can also check out our new video, The Curious Case of Fracking: Questions from the Road, to get a flavor of the types of questions that arise when people are faced with making decisions on fracking in their communities.

climate change, energy policy, fossil fuels, Keystone XL, national ocean politics, tar sands

Ecowatch: A Call for Unity: An Open Letter From a Texas Landowner to Keystone XL Pipeline Opponents

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http://ecowatch.com/2013/tx-landowner-to-keystonexl-pipeline-opponents/
8 minutes ago Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Michael Bishop

My name is Michael Bishop and I am a landowner in Douglass, TX in Nacogdoches County. I have been fighting TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline for almost five years now and, except for a handful of good Americans, was told there was no interest in eminent domain cases or that I “couldn’t win a case against TransCanada.” For the record, I contacted environmental group after environmental group since the beginning of this fight and I begged for legal assistance from, literally, dozens of attorneys specializing in Constitutional law, eminent domain and civil law, to no avail. In my own state of Texas, I contacted a national nonprofit group that was not only negative about me fighting this company, but was actually rude and unwilling to even discuss the argument I was trying to make in support of litigation against TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline, LLC. I also called a well-known environmental group in Austin that talked a good game, but, in the end, did not deliver and ended up aligning themselves with individuals who brought shame to that group through unscrupulous actions and comments against suffering landowners.

bishopART
Michael Bishop, a landowner in Douglass, TX.

I called local county commissioners and my county judge who refused to put me on the agenda to bring them a five minute presentation as to why my county should oppose this pipeline and to show them that a legislative tool or existing law gave them the authority to stop construction. I was not allowed to make such a presentation. This is sad, given that this same commissioner’s court gave TransCanada representatives over four hours of “updates” and “information” sessions and actually entered into agreements with this firm. A private citizen, taxpayer and landowner was denied the right to present information to the leaders of the county while representatives of a foreign, privately owned corporation were given the “key to the county.” I contacted multiple state agencies that are mandated by law to protect and represent the public interest in environmental matters only to be told they were unable to assist me and that they had no “legal authority,” although this was, and is, clearly not the case.

What I find further disturbing during my research in the cases I have filed against TransCanada, the Texas Railroad Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is the level of corruption I have uncovered and witnessed in our judiciary and legislative representatives. Sadly, this allegation goes all the way to the White House. During my fight against this illegal foreign land grab, I have seen many good people in Texas and other states destroyed by the actions of TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline, and their dreams (along with mine) for the future of their children and grandchildren shattered by greed, lies, propaganda and bullying tactics of a private, foreign corporation that has the complete and overwhelming support of these corrupt local leaders, politicians and judges. It is time for change.

I am sick of the rhetoric of politicians who speak out of both sides of their mouths: they support stopping climate change while approving this pipeline; they support “property rights” while refusing to support reform of eminent domain laws that violate the Constitutional rights of citizens. I am tired of individuals who “praise and support” our efforts to stop the pipeline but have a selfish agenda that is counter-productive to the on-going fight. Daddy used to tell me that people are basically driven by four things: power, sex, money or all of the above. I have witnessed, firsthand, in my fight against TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline, individuals and groups that are not team players, do not support or have not supported those landowners in need and continue to get their names in the news as “key players” in this fight, when in fact, they do not support, have not supported and have not contributed one original idea, one cent or one original strategy to this serious war we are engaged in. In fact, some of them are actually guilty of plagiarism and giving misleading and misinformed statements to the media. It is time to put away self-serving agendas and concentrate on the few legitimate fights that are currently going on out here in the real world. With the exception of dedicated environmental news outlets and real journalists, the mainstream media has fallen prey to the propaganda machine of TransCanada and the U.S. government information “puppets.” They are not reporting the true stories of landowners who have stood firm and are fighting this illegal pipeline and in spite of multiple lawsuits, Heartland America is not aware of our plight. The media is controlled and has no interest in truth and this is also a sad reality of our current society.

For months I have thought about what to write and the answer is clear: unity. We are all aware of the universal fact that the government, concerned about “eco-terrorists,” have embedded agents in the various groups opposed to the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline and it is also no secret that there are “double agents” paid by TransCanada to infiltrate these various organizations opposed to the pipeline and provide them with information regarding anti-pipeline activities. I can name at least four major groups that are receiving massive amounts of money to protest and fight TransCanada from private investors or “funders” as well as several nonprofit foundations. What has this funding achieved? Nothing. Julia Trigg Crawford, to my understanding, has waged her legal battle, for the most part, with her own funding. The Texas Rice Farmers group, my own legal battles and other landowners have not been able to raise money to assist in these legal battles, although there are groups out there receiving substantial sums of money. The race for “headlines,” the urgency to make a name for themselves and the struggle for power and recognition have blinded these individuals and groups to the real legal battles that are currently on-going in Texas. This is sad and it must end.

As a U.S. Marine, I learned and learned well the absolute requirement for working as a team and performing as a cohesive unit. It is time for individuals and groups that have separate political agendas and financial motives to reassess their actions, review the work that myself and other landowners have accomplished thus far and join in to help us. Without this support and absolute unity, TransCanada will prevail and the “twin” pipeline that has already been planned and proposed will follow this Southern segment of the KXL. This will become a reality in another year or two and we will then be in double jeopardy.

I urge everyone to consider this letter and to join the few of us that are out here fighting for the future of our children and grandchildren and not vying for political or financial advancement. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. I hope that this call to unity will give those who are guilty pause for consideration and that they will join us and stop working against us in this honorable and real fight against TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline.

Michael Bishop previously provided EcoWatch with a four-part firsthand account of what happens when a company like TransCanada claims eminent domain on one’s property and begins building a tar sands pipeline—the southern leg of the Keystone XL. Read Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV.

Visit EcoWatch’s KEYSTONE XL page for more related news on this topic.