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Dirty Oil Versus Bloody Oil

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May 13, 2012

What a choice. But that’s how a Canadian official tried to pitch tar-sands oil over “bloody oil” from OPEC. The Canadian government also launched a massive public relations campaign to try to stop the European Union from ruling that tar-sands oil is much dirtier than oil extracted under more conventional means.

Why all the fuss? MONEY. BIG MONEY. About three trillion dollars worth over the next twenty-five years, if Canada gets to fully exploit its tar-sands reserves. But an EU study last year found that tar-sands oil pumped as much as 22 percent more carbon into the atmosphere than conventional oil–when the processing of the tar-sands was taken into consideration. That’s why James Hansen, NASA’s renowned scientist, has said it’s “game over” for the planet if full use of Canadian tar-sands is permitted.

So Canada launched its massive PR campaign, the likes of which have never before been seen by EU officials. That’s the word in a solid bit of reporting today from Reuters. In fact, the details of the Canadian campaign appear unseemly, to be frank, as was the Canadian government’s decision to take final decision-making powers on big projects away from regulators and hand them over to the government. Considering how close the government is to Big Oil, it’s very much like sending the fox to guard the chickens. But that move was made by the same official who branded opponents of the tar-sands and pipeline projects “radicals.”

Reading about the Canadian government’s efforts to foist tar-sands onto a reluctant EU–and its fears that the U.S. might take a cue from the EU, if the latter rules against tar-sands–isn’t pretty, but it is important. Here’s the link to Reuters:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/10/us-oil-sands-idUSBRE8490OL20120510

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“Game Over for the Climate”

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May 10, 2012

The headline is in quotes because it’s lifted directly from an op-ed by James Hanson, who has used those words repeatedly to describe the state of Earth if the Canadian tar sands are mined to produce more oil. Hansen is the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is widely renowned as a climate scientist. For decades he’s been trying to call attention to the heating of the planet because of fossil fuel consumption.

His latest attempt to wake up some folks appears as a featured column in this morning’s New York Times. I’m going to lift a few more sentences that I hope will lure you to read the whole column:

“Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.”

There’s more. Here’s the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/opinion/game-over-for-the-climate.html

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Geoengineering and Climate Change

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May 7, 2012

A comprehensive piece in the The New Yorker on the status of geoengineering–using technological tools to alter the planet’s thermostat. It’s a highly controversial subject because geoengineering has catastrophic potential, but the very fact that it’s under serious consideration in many quarters is because humans have already geoengineered Earth’s atmosphere by pumping greenhouse gases into it with abandon. I’ve read a lot about this subject over the past few years, and I’ve never run across a single piece that covered it as succinctly as this one, including the absence of international laws on unilateral action by nations to go it alone on projects that would impact the entire planet.

So, I’d strongly suggest settling in with this article.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/14/120514fa_fact_specter

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Dots Connected; War, Food, and Climate Change

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May 6, 2012

A couple of items today. Let’s start with the visuals. At 350.org, you’ll find photos from around the world as people from dozens of countries provided visual signs–speaking literally and figuratively–of climate change and extreme weather. It’s easy to watch this slide show, and surely worth the reminder that climate change isn’t only a future threat: It’s here. And here’s the link to 350.org:

http://www.climatedots.org/

Now let’s go back in time, to a book about World War II and the role food security–or lack thereof–played in the ferociously aggressive actions of Japan and Germany. This is the first time in almost 350 posts that I’ve linked to a book review, so it should give you sense of the importance I place on the attention, in this morning’s New York Times, granted to “The Taste of War” by Lizzie Cunningham. Here’s the final paragraph of the review–and why war is so pertinent to climate change:

“The American understanding of World War II arises from the special circumstances that made it, for us, the source of postwar plenty. But how would we behave if we anticipated that we will no longer be able to feed ourselves as we are accustomed? How will Asia look in 30 years, after China’s topsoil is eroded and its glaciers have melted? Collingham’s book masterfully corrects our understanding of the great conflict that made America what it is, and thus prepares us for the conflicts that are all too likely to come. Its usefulness is hard to overstate.”

Here’s the link to the Times review by Timothy Snyder:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/books/review/the-taste-of-war-by-lizzie-collingham.html?ref=review

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Climate Change and Crime

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May 2, 2012

Interesting piece this morning (link to follow) on climate change and violent crime. In short, do rising temps make people angrier and more violent?

The jury, so to speak, is out on the degree (sorry, couldn’t avoid another pun) to which higher temps lead to violence, but a consensus certainly exists that people do become, let’s say, tetchy, with higher temps. In Detroit, the absence of winter this year has observers blaming the extraordinarily warm weather for some of the violence that let to more than 70 murders between January 1 and March 20. By any standard, that’s violent.

Or is it just that in warmer weather people get out more, and thus have more interactions? There’s research on this, too. But there may be strong reasons why our language has long made links between heat and violence: “hothead,” “spitfire,” “makes my blood boil,” etc.

Here’s the link to eenews.net:
http://www.eenews.net/public/climatewire/2012/05/01/1?page_type=print

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Quite a Week for the Oceans

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April 29, 2012

First, there was the report that underscored concerns about climate change intensifying the cycle of evaporation and rainfall over the oceans. By measuring salinity, scientists inferred that the water cycle–as evaporation and rainfall are referred to in shorthand–had accelerated by about 4 percent over the past half century. While that might not sound like much, it’s twice the number that computerized analyses of the climate said it would be. That’s another example, sadly, of the manner in which computerized analysis has often understated the threats from climate change–and those understated threats have hardly been Pollyannaish.

The scientists say that if the estimate holds up, the water cycle could quicken upwards of 20 percent later in the century. Moreover, the new paper confirms that a long-expected pattern for the oceans also appears to apply to land. What that means is that wet regions are expected to become wetter, while dry regions are likely to become drier. Or, to cut to the chase, the water cycle could lead to more intense weather extremes. If you haven’t read about this research yet, The New York Times has a good report about it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/world/study-hints-at-greater-threat-of-extreme-weather.html?ref=science

Over at “Quirks and Quarks” on the CBC, there’s another story about the oceans, this one focussing on jellyfish. It’s called “The Rise of the Jellies.” While much of ocean wildlife has been hammered by pollution and climate change, it appears that jellyfish are proliferating–but that’s not good news. Why? Because that means the jellies’ large predators–tuna and swordfish, among them–are seeing their populations decline. Also, the “dead zones” that are increasing worldwide from fertilizer runoff, which decreases oxygen in the seas, is actually helping jellyfish because they can still thrive in oxygen poor conditions. The increase of jellies is also linked to coastal development.

The research on the jellies comes from the University of British Columbia. Scientists found that jellyfish populations increased in 62 percent of the areas they studied, and decreased in only 7 percent. East Asia, the Black Sea, the east coast of the U.S., Hawaii, and Antarctica are among the regions noted for experiencing increases. Here’s the link to Quirks and Quarks, which is a wonderful show. The story about the jellyfish appears at about the thirty minute mark of the program:

http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/episode/2012/04/28/april-28-2012/

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Climate Change, Corn Prices, and Why You Might Care

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April 23, 2012

Over the next three decades corn prices are likely to turn volatile because of climate change. That’s the word from a new study published yesterday in the journal Nature Climate Change. One of the researchers was quoted as saying that he thought climate change would be a “minor player” before doing the analysis. But he and other researchers found data consistent with what climate science has been telling us for some time: even moderate warming trends are likely to increase the number of days of severe heat in a growing season. That means scientists are looking to develop more heat-tolerant varieties of corn, and/or move corn production from the U.S. up to Canada.

More on this at The Daily Climate:

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-has-outsize-effect-on-volatility-of-corn-prices-study-shows/

Or the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/business/climate-change-effect-seen-for-corn-prices.html?ref=science

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Happy Earth Day!

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April 22, 2012

In honor of the day, something lighter, as in a comic strip entitled, “Learn How to Combat Climate Change Deniers,”

Here’s the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/the-strip.html?ref=opinion#1

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U.S.: Poll Says Americans Link Extreme Weather and Climate Change; Canada to “Streamline” Environmental Reviews of Inudstrial Projects

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April 18, 2012

It’s one of those good news/bad news days. First, the good news: According to a poll released this morning–and getting press play–Americans overwhelming link the extreme weather of the past year to climate change. Moreover, responses of those polled showed a basic understanding of climate science, which is more than can be said for many climate change deniers. Here’s a link to The New York Times for that story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/science/earth/americans-link-global-warming-to-extreme-weather-poll-says.html?ref=us

Now for the bad news: Canada’s Conservative government said it would streamline the way it performs environmental reviews on major industrial projects (i.e. tar-sands mining) in an attempt to speed the development of mines and pipelines. That, of course, could lead to environment disaster, according to environmental organizations justly alarmed, in my view, by the new Conservative tactics. Here’s the critical element of the Conservative plan: Under Harper, the Conservative government says it will strip key veto powers from the federal energy regulator and give itself the final say on approving major pipelines.

Here’s a link to Reuters for more on that story:
http://news.yahoo.com/canada-cut-back-environmental-reviews-182301793.html

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Microbes Stage Breakout from Icy Prison

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April 17, 2012

Sorry, but I couldn’t resist the imagery in that headline. It’s prompted by a wonderful story in today’s The Daily Climate about the tiny organisms that have been locked up in the ice of Antarctica and Greenland, in many cases longer than humans have been on earth. Now, thanks to climate change, those little critters are defrosting and, yes, many of them are coming back to life. So what does that mean? That’s the thrust of the story.

To broad-stroke the impact, scientists say that melting glaciers could release substantial amounts of carbon from decomposing organic matter. Think of the microscopic life cumulatively acting as a massive composting pile. Also, those organisms are flushing into the sea, which has delicate chemistry; witness, if you will, the growth of “dead zones” around the world.

One of my favorite constructs is “bacteriasicles,” formulated by microbiologist Brent Christner at Louisiana State University, to describe the bacteria frozen for hundreds of thousands of years, and now all ready to grow and divide as favorable conditions arrive. Christner has revived bacteria found in 750,000-year-old-ice. That comes to mind because of a sub-head in the story: “Prehistoric Pestilence.” It refers to viruses that existed at a time when host populations had built up antibodies. But now, if the viruses survive in the ice, those host populations aren’t likely to still have their earlier resistance. But there’s only the tiniest chance of virulent viruses emerging. The bigger threat is the huge amount of organic matter heading to the seas, which could set off vast bacterial growth that could consume all the oxygen in the water, destroy fish habitats, and generate more dead zones.

Then there is the release of all the carbon dioxide, that marvelous heat-trapping gas so essential to life and so daunting as a greenhouse agent.

What’s fascinating–and scary–is we don’t know with great precision what’s going to happen with the melting of the ice sheets. We are, however, going to find out. Here’s the link to The Daily Climate:

http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2012/04/ancient-ice-bugs

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