Month: June 2015

• Ivy Main has a new post about Dominion Virginia Power and utility-scale solar electricity generation.
• Bloomberg Business has an interesting graphic that presents all of the factors influencing Earth’s average temperature since the industrial revolution. (It is more interesting on a computer than on a mobile device.) It may even help your denier friends see what is actually driving the warming.
• Scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts have used computer modeling to study how the Earth’s natural ability to sequester carbon dioxide will change in the future if we continue to burn fossil fuels as we are now. One of their findings is that the oceans will become stratified, thereby cutting off the deep oceans as a storehouse for carbon and keeping more in the atmosphere.
• Research suggests that Canada’s Beaufort Sea is becoming more acidic faster than any other ocean in the world. This will provide insights into what is in store for the rest of Earth’s oceans. In a totally separate study, Kaitlin Alexander and coauthors examine the implications of uneven distribution of ocean acidity during the PETM 55 million years ago to our understanding of that event.
• Alaskan glaciers are contributing much more melt water to the oceans than had previously been thought, with most of the here-to-fore unaccounted for water coming from inland glaciers.
• In contrast to the recent EPA report finding little evidence that hydraulic fracturing is contaminating drinking water wells, a new study published in Environmental Science and Technology has found that drinking water wells in Texas counties that are home to intensive fracking operations contain elevated levels of more than two dozen metals and chemicals, some of which are carcinogens.
• A new study, commissioned by the Environmental Defense Fund, has found that 2.2% of the natural gas produced by gas wells on federal and Indian lands is lost to leakage. When combined with leakage in the distribution system, this suggests that the overall leakage rate exceeds 3%, the level above which any climate benefits of gas over coal are lost. Additional analysis of the report is available here.
• According to a new peer-reviewed EPA study, immediate action against climate change will prevent thousands of premature deaths and save the country from facing severe economic disruptions. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy highlighted the major findings in an NPR interview.
• A report by the Lancet Commission concludes that curbing climate change could be the biggest global health opportunity of the 21st century. Failure to act, on the other hand, could wipe out all public health progress due to economic development over the last 50 years.
• In a new report, Bloomberg New Energy Finance outlines six major shifts that will transform future energy markets. However, fossil fuels will still provide 44% of our power in 2040.
• A new study published in Nature Climate Change finds that human-caused climate change affects weather in two ways. It changes the odds that any given extreme event will occur. It makes the events more severe.
• The heat wave in Pakistan has killed more than 1000 people this past week.
• There were two significant court rulings this week. In the state of Washington a judge has ruled in favor of a group of young people asking that the state be required to protect the climate for future generations. In The Netherlands a court ruled that the government must take action to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to combat global warming.
• For many Christians, protecting the poor of the world and the protecting the environment are intimately intertwined. Justin Gillis examines how this relationship is causing many to view action on climate change as a social-justice issue.
• If you are into cli-fi, you might find Ari Phillips’ review of The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigolupi of interest.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

• The top news this week was about Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter on the environment. The Washington Post published an overview and analysis as well as ten key excerpts. The Carbon Brief posted a much more detailed summary of key statements on climate, energy, and the environment. An abbreviated version of the letter was released by The Vatican. Finally, George Monbiot had a very interesting opinion piece in The Guardian positing that our fight for the natural world is all about love.
• If you saw the television series Years of Living Dangerously you may remember Anna Jane Joyner and her attempts to convince her father, evangelical minister Rick Joyner, about the human roots of climate change. Rolling Stone has an interview with her discussing how to reach members of the evangelical community. She has some very interesting things to say.
• Bill McKibben has a letter to President Obama on Common Dreams telling him that he still has time to be a climate champion. It is well worth reading. (Since it was posted last Thursday it should have been listed in last week’s Weekly Roundup, but I didn’t learn of it until after that Roundup had been sent out.)
• David Gelles of The New York Times examines the divestment movement and whether it is likely to have an impact on the companies targeted or on the shift of the economy off of fossil fuels.
• Norway is operating the world’s first all-electric battery-powered ferry.
• Bella Bathurst has a very interesting piece in The Guardian about Ron Naveen, a biologist who has spent 23 seasons in Antarctica studying penguins. His findings should give us all concern.
• Those who have read Merchants of Doubt, or seen the movie of the same name, will recall Naomi Oreskes, the Harvard historian of science whose research unearthed the activities of the “merchants”. For more background information about her you might be interested in this essay.
• Governor McAuliffe is considering changes to Virginia’s fracking regulations. John Bloom, chair of public health issues for the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, has reviewed the proposed revisions of the regulations and finds them wanting. His comments on the proposed changes can be read in a guest column on Ivy Main’s blog.
• The International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned that current pledges from more than 30 countries imply that global CO2 emissions will continue to rise until 2030, thereby making it very difficult to limit warming to 2C. The IEA has proposed four measures that would allow the world to meet that target.
• David Crane, CEO of NRG Energy, is not your typical head of an energy company. Rather, he wants to change the way energy companies operate, thereby revolutionizing the industry.
• As the Shell drilling rig departs Seattle for the Arctic, The Guardian has another installment in their carbon bomb series, this one about Barrow, Alaska.
• The UN has no category for climate refugees, although more and more people might fall under that category if one existed. The problem lies in establishing that climate change caused a person to become a refugee, just as it is very difficult to say that any single weather event was caused by climate change. Ana Sofia Knauf examines the concept of climate refugees using the case of a man in Seattle as an example.
• There is increasing evidence that warmer temperatures are associated with more intense rainstorms, even when the total rainfall doesn’t change. This may mean that existing drainage systems will be inadequate, leading to more localized flooding.
• Alaska’s glaciers are losing 75 billion tons of ice a year.
• Ilissa Ocko, writing on the Environmental Defense Fund blog, Climate 411, examines six climate tipping points and assesses how concerned we should be about them.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

• Bill McKibben has sent a letter to Hillary Clinton advising her that now is the time to get serious about climate change.
• Elizabeth Douglass of Inside Climate News reports on the difficulty of shareholder engagement with oil and gas companies.
• A number of U.S. weather related records were broken in May, including the wettest May on record for the lower 48 states. In addition, Alaska just recorded the hottest May that it has had since record keeping began 91 years ago. The hot spring may contribute to polar amplification of climate change because of the early loss of snow cover on the ground.
• The G7 Summit set goals for decarbonizing the economies of the G7 nations by 2100, but some felt they were very weak.
• Katherine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University, explains why we need to put a price on carbon as a way to reduce CO2 emissions while honoring our values.
• Jay Faison, a conservative businessman and entrepreneur from Charlotte, NC, has invested $165 million to endow a new foundation focused on getting conservatives to change their minds about climate change.
• The Weather Channel is launching a new media package called The Climate 25: Conversations with 25 of the Smartest Voices on Climate, Security, Energy, and Peace. Each short video features one of 25 people that speaks about their area of expertise relative to climate change.
• A Stanford University study provides a state-by-state plan for converting the U.S. to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2050. The plan for Virginia can be found here.
• Hawaii’s governor has signed a bill requiring the state’s utilities to generate 100% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2045.
• The EPA’s plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions at power plants will create more jobs than it cuts, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute,
• The Environmental Defense Fund has a new white paper analyzing how states can use well-established emissions management tools to meet the requirements of EPA’s Clean Power Plan.
• Amazon Web Services announced on June 10 that it has partnered with Community Energy, Inc. to support the construction and operation of an 80 MW solar farm in Accomack County, VA.
• EPA has announced an endangerment finding with respect to CO2 emissions from commercial aircraft, paving the way for regulation of those emissions.
• According to climate models the temperature in the tropical upper troposphere (roughly 3 – 9 miles altitude) should be increasing faster than the temperature at Earth’s surface in response to atmospheric CO2, but it apparently has not been doing so, providing climate change deniers with evidence that climate models are wrong. Now, in a new paper, Sherwood and Nishant have shown that the upper troposphere is warming about 70-80% faster than the surface, a value close to model predictions.
• The likelihood of a strong El Nino this year is increasing and if it comes to pass it will have a positive impact on precipitation in California, particularly if it lasts until winter.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

• Ivy Main has a new post about the use of solar panels and green buildings to reduce energy costs at schools.
• NOAA scientists have just had a paper published in Science that finds that the so-called hiatus in global warming since 1998 is an artifact caused by inaccuracies in the global temperature record. Rather, their reanalysis of the global temperature record shows that there is no hiatus. As might be expected, the paper has caused quite a stir, especially among the denier community. Two additional articles on the subject can be found here and here.
• The death toll in India from their heat wave has continued to rise. Catherine de Lange has a post in The Guardian with an interesting graphic that shows the combinations of temperature and humidity at which it is dangerous to work out of doors. She also explains why high temperatures are dangerous.
• The third installment of The Guardian‘s carbon bomb series covers coal in China. Like the previous two, it really grabs you.
• Getting countries to make the costly but necessary investments to reduce their carbon emissions will take more than diplomacy. It will require a big stick, something currently lacking from the negotiations leading up to Paris.
• After suffering a multi-year drought, Texas has recently experienced record high rainfall with associated widespread flooding. This is referred to as “weather whiplash” as explained by Joe Romm.
• Although a temperature increase of 2C over preindustrial times has been the goal of international negotiations for quite some time, some are saying that pledges so far are inadequate and that the Paris conference in December may mark the end of it as a goal.
• A new study indicates that natural gas may not be effective as a bridge to a low carbon world.
• The EPA has just released a report that concludes that there is little evidence that fracking represents a threat to water supplies. This means that it is unlikely that additional regulations will be put forth.
• A paper in the journal Nature Climate Change suggests that global warming may result in the largest ocean species migration in 3 million years, with a large impact on fisheries and other marine food supplies.
• In one of the most surprising actions this week, a group of six major oil/gas companies have indicated that they are ready for a price on carbon and, in fact, need one in order to effectively plan for the future. Tim McDonnell at Mother Jones and Tara Patel at Bloomberg Business both had commentaries, as did a former CEO of Shell, who also indicated that divestment is a perfectly rational response to current actions of fossil fuel companies.
• Last week I included an item about a new paper by Jennifer Francis of Rutgers providing more evidence that the warming Arctic is causing more severe winter weather patterns at mid-latitude in the Northern Hemisphere. Well, this week she and another coauthor have another new paper out with even more evidence for their hypothesis.
• Renewable energy in South Africa is producing significant amounts of electricity less expensively than new coal-fired power plants.
• Southeastern U.S. forests are being cut to provide biomass for European power plants and the practice may not lead to a reduction in carbon emissions.
• Psychological barriers make it difficult to overcome denial of climate change. Brian Roewe discusses the various factors that prevent us from taking climate change seriously.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.