Global Warming or what the frack???

In 2011 temperatures around the globe were slightly cooler on average than in the two years before. Does that mean Global Warming has somehow ended? Or that it has never even existed? Global Ideas Climate Expert Anders Levermann explains why a cooler year does not contradict the reality of Global Warming (15 August 2012).

So, who is Anders Levermann???  He is the Chair of research domain Sustainable Solutions of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The Head of PIK-flagship activity TUMBLE on the stability of Greenland, Antarctica, monsoon & ocean circulation. The Lead author of the Sea Level Change chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR5). A Professor at the Physics Institute of Potsdam University teaching climate physics and the author of climate-science video column “Global Expert” answering questions on climate change.[1] And he is also a prolific blogger.

Recently, a prominent climate sceptic has been in the news as a result of his conversion to a climate believer.[2]  The physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Richard Muller published a memorable op-ed in the New York Times, announcing his conversion: “CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause. My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases. These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming. In its 2007 report, the I.P.C.C. concluded only that most of the warming of the prior 50 years could be attributed to humans. It was possible, according to the I.P.C.C. consensus statement, that the warming before 1956 could be because of changes in solar activity, and that even a substantial part of the more recent warming could be natural. Our Berkeley Earth approach used sophisticated statistical methods developed largely by our lead scientist, Robert Rohde, which allowed us to determine earth land temperature much further back in time. We carefully studied issues raised by skeptics: biases from urban heating (we duplicated our results using rural data alone), from data selection (prior groups selected fewer than 20 percent of the available temperature stations; we used virtually 100 percent), from poor station quality (we separately analyzed good stations and poor ones) and from human intervention and data adjustment (our work is completely automated and hands-off). In our papers we demonstrate that none of these potentially troublesome effects unduly biased our conclusions. The historic temperature pattern we observed has abrupt dips that match the emissions of known explosive volcanic eruptions; the particulates from such events reflect sunlight, make for beautiful sunsets and cool the earth’s surface for a few years. There are small, rapid variations attributable to El Niño and other ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream; because of such oscillations, the “flattening” of the recent temperature rise that some people claim is not, in our view, statistically significant. What has caused the gradual but systematic rise of two and a half degrees? We tried fitting the shape to simple math functions (exponentials, polynomials), to solar activity and even to rising functions like world population. By far the best match was to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, measured from atmospheric samples and air trapped in polar ice. Just as important, our record is long enough that we could search for the fingerprint of solar variability, based on the historical record of sunspots. That fingerprint is absent. Although the I.P.C.C. allowed for the possibility that variations in sunlight could have ended the “Little Ice Age,” a period of cooling from the 14th century to about 1850, our data argues strongly that the temperature rise of the past 250 years cannot be attributed to solar changes. This conclusion is, in retrospect, not too surprising; we’ve learned from satellite measurements that solar activity changes the brightness of the sun very little. How definite is the attribution to humans? The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we’ve tried. Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect — extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don’t prove causality and they shouldn’t end skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does. Adding methane, a second greenhouse gas, to our analysis doesn’t change the results. Moreover, our analysis does not depend on large, complex global climate models, the huge computer programs that are notorious for their hidden assumptions and adjustable parameters. Our result is based simply on the close agreement between the shape of the observed temperature rise and the known greenhouse gas increase”.[3]  So, there you go and there you have it, or, is there anything else???  Claire Perlman writes that “Muller’s project has been criticized in the past for receiving $150,000 in funding from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, which is associated with Koch Industries, an oil and gas conglomerate. The foundation has historically supported conservative causes, so environmentalists were unsure what to expect when Muller prepared to announce the study’s findings last year. Muller maintained throughout the study that the funding would have no impact on the results of the research, and he sort of proved it with the group’s results that show a two and a half degree Fahrenheit increase over the last 250 years, and one and a half degrees Fahrenheit increase over the last 50 years”.[4]  Does this now mean that Muller has become free from his Koch addiction???  Has he now become an advocate of clean energy and renewable resources???  Well actually, not quite . . . he now advocates switching to natural gas.

Turns out that Professor Muller has now become a vocal proponent of fracking . . . Or as explained by Perlman: “Muller hopes the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and humanity’s role in exacerbating it. He believes the most difficult task in front of us is to reach a consensus across the political spectrum about what we are going to do to deal with a changing climate. In the near future, the majority of greenhouse gas emissions will come from China, India, and other parts of the developing world, Muller said in an email to Earth Island Journal. In order to slow warming, he said two major initiatives are required: technical conservation and replacing coal with natural gas, which emits one-third of the carbon dioxide coal emits when burned. Muller’s advocacy of natural gas as a cleaner fuel, however, doesn’t really delve into the serious environmental and health impacts caused by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — the process of extracting gas buried in shale deposits that’s become increasingly popular in the United States. In an interview earlier this month with talk show host Rachel Maddow, he offered up an unbelievably naïve solution to such concerns: ‘Well, I totally don’t support the old kind of fracking, but I think clean fracking — in which you just fine the hell out of the companies if they spill anything or upset the water tables, they can fix it up. Compared to developing really cheap solar, developing really clean fracking, I think, is relatively straightforward’”.[5]

Over the past years we have heard the phrase Clean Coal, and now, Professor Muller is talking about Clean Fracking???  What the frack???  In all fairness, some time ago I met a geologist who told me about a new methodology for fracking involving microwaves . . . but as such, apart from that personal testimony, I have not heard about this revolutionary way to frack our environment. Maybe the Koch Bros will turn out to be the ultimate champions of clean fracking, possibly employing the awesome power of microwaves???  After all, Koch Industries is an oil and gas conglomerate . . .

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[1] “Anders Levermann” Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~anders/.

[2] “Changing Views About A Changing Climate” NPR (03 August 2012). http://www.npr.org/2012/08/03/158085161/changing-views-about-a-changing-climate.

[3] Richard A. Muller, “The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic” The New York Times (28 July 2012). http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all.

[4] Claire Perlman, “The Not-So-Great Part of Richard Muller’s Conversion from Climate Skeptic to Believer” Earth Island Journal (15 August 2012). http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/the_not-so-great_part_of_richard_mullers_conversion_from_climate_skeptic_to.

[5] Claire Perlman, “The Not-So-Great Part of Richard Muller’s Conversion”.

Fukushima: A Tale of Disasters Expected

The intrepid Mister Palast spins his tale like this: “On March 12 [2011], as I watched Fukushima melt, I knew: the “SQ” had been faked. Anderson Cooper said it would all be OK.  He’d flown to Japan, to suck up the radiation and official company bullshit. The horror show was not the fault of Tokyo Electric, he said, because the plant was built to withstand only an 8.0 earthquake on the Richter scale, and this was 9.0. Anderson must have been in the gym when they handed out the facts. The 9.0 shake was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 90 miles away. It was barely a tenth of that power at Fukushima. I was ready to vomit. Because I knew who had designed the plant, who had built it and whom Tokyo Electric Power was having rebuild it: Shaw Construction. The latest alias of Stone & Webster, the designated builder for every one of the four new nuclear plants that the Obama Administration has approved for billions in federal studies. But I had The Notebook, the diaries of the earthquake inspector for the company. I’d squirreled it out sometime before the TradeCenter [where the documents were kept] went down. I shouldn’t have done that. Too bad. All field engineers keep a diary. Gordon Dick, a supervisor, wasn’t sup- posed to show his to us. I asked him to show it to us and, reluctantly, he directed me to these notes about the “SQ” tests”.[1]

And in his inimical style, Palast enlightens us next: “SQ is nuclear-speak for “Seismic Qualification.” A seismically qualified nuclear plant won’t melt down if you shake it. A “seismic event” can be an earthquake or a Christmas present from Al Qaeda. You can’t run a nuclear reactor in the USA or Europe or Japan without certified SQ. This much is clear from [Gordon Dick’s] notebook: This nuclear plant will melt down in an earthquake. The plant dismally failed to meet the Seismic I (shaking) standards required by U.S. and international rules”.[2]  Fukushima was a disaster waiting to happen . . . and now four nuclear plants of the same type are set to be built in the U.S. Palast continues, “Here’s what we learned: Dick’s subordinate at the nuclear plant, Robert Wiesel, conducted the standard seismic review. Wiesel flunked his company. No good. Dick then ordered Wiesel to change his report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, change it from failed to passed. Dick didn’t want to make Wiesel do it, but Dick was under the gun himself, acting on direct command from corporate chiefs. From The Notebook: ‘Wiesel was very upset. He seemed very nervous. Very agitated. [He said,] “I believe these are bad results and I believe it’s reportable,” and then he took the volume of federal regulations from the shelf and went to section 50.55(e), which describes reportable deficiencies at a nuclear plant and [they] read the section together, with Wiesel pointing to the appropriate paragraphs that federal law clearly required [them and the company] to report the Category II, Seismic I deficiencies. Wiesel then expressed his concern that he was afraid that if he [Wiesel] reported the deficiencies, he would be fired, but that if he didn’t report the deficiencies, he would be breaking a federal law’. . . . [Palast then goes on: ] The law is clear. It is a crime not to report a safety failure. I could imagine Wiesel standing there with that big, thick rule book in his hands, The Law. It must have been heavy. So was his paycheck. He weighed the choices: Break the law, possibly a jail-time crime, or keep his job”.[3]  What did Bob Wiesel do???

Palast ends his piece on Fukushima and SQ thus: “I think we should all worry about Bob. The company he worked for, Stone & Webster Engineering, built or designed about a third of the nuclear plants in the United States”.[4]  The good folks at Wikipedia tell us that ‘Stone & Webster is an American engineering services company based in Stoughton, Massachusetts. Stone & Webster was founded as an electrical testing lab and consulting firm by electrical engineers Charles Stone and Edwin Webster in 1889. It was acquired by The Shaw Group in 2000. The company provides engineering, construction, environmental services, and plant operation and maintenance. The company has long been involved in power generation projects and has worked on most American nuclear power plants’.[5]  Not content with simply endangering the world with unsafe nuclear power plants, The Shaw Group recently proudly announced that ‘it has achieved substantial completion of the new Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center, a 585-megawatt clean coal-fired generating plant in Virginia for Dominion Virginia Power. As part of substantial completion, the plant was operated at its rated capacity and released to Dominion for commercial operation’.[6]  Nuclear energy is an unsafe method of boiling water, given that the nuclear waste material will have to be safely deposited . . . which seems like a contradiction in terms. At the same time, the company is also busy purveying other means to boil water using “clean coal”, a fuel that has been proven not to exist.

 

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[1] Greg Palast, “The Fukushima story you didn’t hear on CNN” Greg Palast (08 March 2012). http://www.gregpalast.com/the-fukushima-story-you-didnt-hear-on-cnn/.

[2] Greg Palast, “The Fukushima story you didn’t hear on CNN”.

[3] Greg Palast, “The Fukushima story you didn’t hear on CNN”.

[4] Greg Palast, “The Fukushima story you didn’t hear on CNN”.

[5] “Stone & Webster” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_%26_Webster.

[6] “Shaw Completes New 585-MW Clean Coal-fired Generating Plant in Virginia” News Release (12 July 2012). http://ir.shawgrp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=61066&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1714193&highlight=.

Bottled Water Redux & the Story of Broke

The Story-of-Stuff Lady, Annie Leonard takes on the thorny issue of bottled water,[1] in the below clip: ‘The Story of Bottled Water, released on March 22, 2010 (World Water Day) employs the Story of Stuff style to tell the story of manufactured demand—how you get Americans to buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week when it already flows from the tap. Over five minutes, the film explores the bottled water industry’s attacks on tap water and its use of seductive, environmental-themed advertising to cover up the mountains of plastic waste it produces. The film concludes with a call to take back the tap, not only by making a personal commitment to avoid bottled water, but by supporting investments in clean, available tap water for all. Our production partners on the bottled water film include five leading sustainability groups: Corporate Accountability International, Environmental Working Group, Food & Water Watch, Pacific Institute, and Polaris Institute’.

That was then, meaning 2010, but this is now, in other words 2011 on its way to 2012: ‘The United States isn’t broke; we’re the richest country on the planet and a country in which the richest among us are doing exceptionally well. But the truth is, our economy is broken, producing more pollution, greenhouse gasses and garbage than any other country. In these and so many other ways, it just isn’t working. But rather than invest in something better, we continue to keep this ‘dinosaur economy’ on life support with hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money. The Story of Broke calls for a shift in government spending toward investments in clean, green solutions—renewable energy, safer chemicals and materials, zero waste and more—that can deliver jobs AND a healthier environment. It’s time to rebuild the American Dream; but this time, let’s build it better’.

The 20^th century was the American Century, we are told, and the 21^st will be the Chinese, rumour has it . . . but staying in the U.S. and ignoring the Chinese-owned American debt, Annie Leonard emphatically declares that “We’re not really broke—our public money has just been hijacked. Our new film, The Story of Broke, shines a light on the dumb choices our elected so-called leaders are making with our money: handing out tax breaks for oil companies reaping record profits; paving public roads that only go to one place—a new Walmart; granting permits to mine public lands at prices set in 1872; cleaning up toxic messes made by giant chemical companies; and offering public funds for corporations building nuclear reactors and other risky ventures. Here’s how it’s supposed to work in a democracy: Every year, you and I pitch some of our money into the shared public account. Our government is supposed to use this money for the public good: public safety, education, environmental protection, and helping those in need. Some public money also gets used to help businesses—to encourage job creation or spur technological innovation, for instance. I’m all for the government using some of my money to help businesses grow and innovate – as long as I and my fellow citizens also benefit. Unfortunately that’s not always what happens. And we usually don’t see it happening because most of the handouts take the form of hidden subsidies – tax breaks, government contracts, access to public land and water. If a member of Congress came to your house and asked for money to build a garbage incinerator in a low-income neighborhood, to mine uranium near the Colorado River, or boost the balance sheet of an oil company that just posted record profits, you’d tell him to get off your lawn.  But thousands of lobbyists in Washington and billons in campaign contributions keep the subsidies flowing – and hold America back from the sustainable economy of the future. So as we balance our personal bank accounts each month, let’s remember that there’s a whole other pot of money we’re responsible for as well. It’s both our right and our responsibility to help determine how that money is spent and we should be making sure it’s helping build a better world. We know that a better future is possible—that we can make Stuff in ways that are safe and healthy and fair. We know that clean energy and non-toxic chemicals exist. Better alternatives have been around for decades. It’s high time we gave a leg up to the kinds of cleaner, healthier industries we need for the century ahead. It’s time we put our money behind businesses that will help build a better future. That means stepping out of our consumer selves and occupying our citizen selves. It means reminding ourselves and our governments of the power we have when we unite as citizens. That’s why what was happening in Oakland and other cities last week was so exciting. Because together, getting out of the shopping mall and into the streets, we do have real power to make a better future. And we have enough money to get started right now”.[2]

In fact, turns out, as explained by Business Insider’s Vincent Trivett, it is not really the Chinese who are holding the great bulk of U.S. debt: ‘Hong Kong, Caribbean Banking Centers, Taiwan, Brazil, Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC), Mutual Funds, Commercial Banks, State, Local, and Federal Retirement Funds, Money Market Mutual Funds, the UK, Private Pension Funds, State and Local Governments, Japan, U.S. households, China, The Federal ieserve, Social Security Trust Fund’, and he ends his survey by stating that “[i]n all, the Treasury owes foreigners and foreign governments $4.514 trillion dollars . . . But [, that] Americans own most of their own country’s $14,342,909,569,328.74 of debt”.[3]  Trivett points out that the Chinese own but 8% of the U.S. debt burden.

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[1] “Bottled Water as an Emblem of Today’s Capitalism” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (17 December 2010). http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/bottled-water-as-an-emblem-of-today%e2%80%99s-capitalism/.

[2] “We’re Not Broke” The Story of Stuff Project Blog (07 November 2011). http://www.storyofstuff.org/2011/11/07/were-not-broke/.

[3] Vincent Trivett, “The TRUTH About Who Really Owns All Of America’s Debt” Business Insider (20 July 2011). http://www.businessinsider.com/who-owns-us-debt-2011-7#.

Thom Hartmann: Fukushima . . . what you haven’t been hearing and why

Nearly five months after the earthquake and tsunami – Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant is still spewing radiation. Yesterday – Tokyo Electric Power Company said it detected the highest radiation levels to date at the crippled nuclear facility – recording ten thousand milliSieverts an hour – the maximum level the devices can even measure. The measures were taken just outside entilation stacks in reactors one and two – reactors we saw explode in the weeks after the quake and tsunami. So what’s going on here? Could the nuclear crisis in Japan ACTUALLY be worsening after 5 months? Here to shed some light on this issue is Kevin Kamps – Nuclear Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear (3 August 2011).

 

 

The Coal Industry gets Punk’d Good!

Coal Cares offers a line of customized inhalers for asthmatic kids including ones decorated with Elmo – Miley Cyrus – or diamond bling. It’s their way to make using an inhaler cool – and Coal Cares is offering them free of charge to any kids living within 200 miles of a coal plant. If this site seems a little too unbelievable to be true . . . that’s because it is . . . it’s not real. It’s a project created by the YES Lab and a group called “Coal is Killing Kids” to raise awareness about the effect of dirty coal’s externalities – as in the diseases that hit communities thanks to pollution. Thom Hartmann talks to Laurel Whitney, Environmental Consultant – Yes Lab.

 

The website for Coal Cares is really amazing: ‘We at PacifiCorp want to make Asthma-Related Bullying (ARB) a thing of the past. Studies have shown that ARB unnecessarily burdens our children with traumas they may never outgrow, and that may influence them to develop in ways we wouldn’t like. Studies have also shown that the single best way to reduce the stigma of childhood asthma, and therefore stop ARB, is simply to make inhalers cool. By giving kids a wide range of choices for enhancing their inhalers, they’ll no longer feel obligated to try to hide their condition—a near-impossible task anyhow. Kids should never be ashamed of having asthma—after all, many of their classmates likely have it as well!’.[1]  

  

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[1] “How does Coal Care™?” Coal Cares. http://www.coalcares.org/faq.html.