environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility IPCC oceanic acidification oceans
by Warren
leave a comment
Meta
SiteMeter
Brighter Planet
Year 4, Month 8, Day 31: Merde Alors!
Time Magazine’s Bryan Walsh notes that the IPCC Report discusses oceanic acidification, saying of climatologists:
But here’s one thing they do know: oceans are absorbing a large portion of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere—in fact, oceans are the largest single carbon sink in the world, dwarfing the absorbing abilities of the Amazon rainforest. But the more CO2 the oceans absorb, the more acidic they become on a relative scale, because some of the carbon reacts within the water to form carbonic acid. This is a slow-moving process—it’s not as if the oceans are suddenly going to become made of hydrochloric acid. But as two new studies published yesterday in the journal Nature Climate Change shows, acidification will make the oceans much less hospitable to many forms of marine life—and acidification may actually to serve to amplify overall warming.
The first study, by the German researchers Astrid Wittmann and Hans-O. Portner, is a meta-analysis looking at the specific effects rising acid levels are likely to have on specific categories of ocean life: corals, echinoderms, molluscs, crustaceans and fishes. Every category is projected to respond poorly to acidification, which isn’t that surprising—pH, which describes the relative acidity of a material, is about as basic a function of the underlying chemistry of life as you can get. (Lower pH indicates more acidity.) Rapid changes—and the ocean is acidifying rapidly, at least on a geological time scale—will be difficult for many species to adapt to.
I revised a letter I sent to Time on the same subject about 2 years ago. Took me about 10 minutes. Better luck this time, non?
Those of us who grew up in the 1960s will remember that Walter Cronkite wasn’t the only man on television who was universally loved and trusted. The late Jacques Cousteau introduced millions of young people to the notion that our planet’s oceans were places of strange and profound beauty, well-worth the effort to preserve and protect. The IPCC Report’s distressing news about accelerating oceanic acidification makes me wonder that that tough old Frenchman would say — and do — about it. It’s easy enough to imagine: after a few unprintable Gallic expletives, he’d start speaking truth to the world’s industrialized nations — telling them to show genuine leadership on climate change and carbon emissions. This passionate and eloquent explorer noted years ago, that “the water cycle and the life cycle are one.” Our captains of industry and the leaders of our civilization need to heed those words before it’s too late.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes corporate irresponsibility denialists idiots James Inhofe Republicans
by Warren
leave a comment
Meta
SiteMeter
Brighter Planet
Year 4, Month 8, Day 30: And The Countdown Begins!
The Washington Post is moving slowly to atone for decades of George Will columns:
NEXT MONTH, the international arbiter of the scientific consensus on global warming will release its latest evaluation of the state of the research. A few will dismiss the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) findings as overwrought alarmism. But a draft leaked to reporters last week indicates that, for most people, the report will serve as another stern warning about the risks of continuing to pump carbon dioxide into the air.
The scientists are set to claim that the increasing amount of greenhouse gases that humans have emitted into the atmosphere has almost certainly been the chief driver of the warming of the planet over the past half-century, a finding to which they ascribe 95 percent confidence. That’s the level of likelihood researchers typically consider robust enough to justify drawing very strong conclusions.
Grim. August 27:
The question is not whether humanity’s complex industrial civilization has caused a radical reconfiguration of Earth’s climate. That was resolved long ago, and the answer was “Yes”; the IPCC’s new report is just statistical icing on a well-baked cake of certainty. The real question is how long it’s going to take for this new climatic reality to radically reconfigure the attitudes of those with deeply vested financial and political interests in denial.
It’d be nice to think that the encroaching realities of climate change — burgeoning wildfires, rising ocean levels, increasingly severe storms, historically unprecedented droughts — would be persuasive enough. But it is inherent in the nature of paranoid thinking that mere evidence is inadequate. The only way these politicians will change their entrenched anti-science attitudes is for their corporate sponsors to recognize that rejection of climatological evidence will negatively impact profit margins. Civilizational collapse is bad for business.
Warren Senders
atheism environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility economics sustainability
by Warren
leave a comment
Meta
SiteMeter
Brighter Planet
Year 4, Month 8, Day 27: What It Don’t Get, I Can’t Use
Delaware Online notes their state’s response to POTUS’ initiatives:
Delaware officials gathered in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach on Wednesday as part of a nationwide chain of rallies supporting the Obama administration’s new climate change initiatives, producing both calls for action and ominous warnings.
“We need to think through the various tradeoffs, the economics, but the only way we can do that is to keep it at the top of the agenda,” Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Secretary Collin P. O’Mara said. “The only way we can keep it at the top of the agenda is if all of you and all of us keep bringing it up over and over again.”
O’Mara’s comment came at the end of a small group meeting at Wilmington’s Riverfront, supported by a coalition of business, labor, government, health and environmental groups backing Obama’s proposal last month to curb power plant emissions of carbon dioxide. That proposal immediately came under fire from skeptics and conservative politicians, with a Senate committee releasing a report earlier this month questioning the science behind Obama’s initiative.
Supporters have focused on a need for action to deal with growing evidence that human-caused pollution and fossil-fuel burning has set the stage for disastrous global warming and climate shifts before the century ends.
Threats range from sea-level rise and more intense storms, to flooding, extreme weather, longer and more-intense droughts, and changing agricultural and water supply conditions that Defense Department officials warn could increase global suffering and political instability.
I don’t remember specifically conflating economic and theological fairy tales before. I like it. Aug. 1:
Lawmakers, business leaders, and media figures are all fond of telling us that the imperatives of addressing climate change must be balanced with the requirements of economic expansion. Unlike the anti-science screeds of conservative climate-change denialists, this stance seems entirely plausible at first glance. And indeed, public statements of allegiance to the doctrine of continuous economic growth are as essential to a politician as professions of religious faith.
Perhaps it’s time to reconsider this shibboleth. After all, those photographs of Earth from space have been part of our consciousness for four decades. We live on a finite planet; our resources, whether they’re water, food, or the capacity of the environment to absorb our waste products, are likewise limited — and it is logically absurd to assert that infinite growth is possible under these circumstances.
As the saying goes, “Health is our greatest wealth,” and the health of our planetary home is ultimately the only “economy” that matters; a massive quarterly return isn’t going to keep our grandchildren from suffering the consequences of our civilization’s profligate and wasteful fossil-fuel binge. That can only happen through a concerted effort to address the causes and consequences of climate change.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: agriculture corporate irresponsibility denialists fishing inappropriate Nazi analogies sustainability
by Warren
leave a comment
Meta
SiteMeter
Brighter Planet
Year 4, Month 8, Day 26: Two Words.
The Waterville Morning Sentinel (ME) tells us about the problems of their state’s fishing industry:
Maine’s fishermen must be better informed, more communicative about conditions on the water and responsive to change to survive the constant shifts brought by a warming climate and water that is growing warmer and saltier.
That was the message from about 100 marine biologists, fisheries managers, commercial fishermen and others who shared both scientific findings and anecdotal observations on the changes that are occurring in the Gulf of Maine. The fisheries participants gathered Wednesday in Portland at a two-day Island Institute symposium on climate change and its impact on fisheries in the Gulf of Maine.
The consensus on the changes in conditions was predictable, given the roller-coaster ride over catches and pricing for lobstermen in 2012 and the ongoing crisis over groundfish stocks.
Peak Fish. August 1:
Maine’s fishing industry would be facing huge changes even without the looming threat of climate change, since overfishing has made the huge catches of the past increasingly harder to achieve. But adding heating and acidification (the two most tangible oceanic consequences of the accelerating greenhouse effect) to the mix means that fisheries are likely to confront catastrophic declines. In the coming decades, there will be fewer fish, and they’ll be harder and more expensive to find and catch. In other words, we’ve reached Peak Fish.
Given that between a quarter and a third of Earth’s population depends on the ocean directly or indirectly for food, this amounts to a humanitarian emergency. Combined with the likely impacts of climate change on land-based food production, this constitutes a stark warning to our species: get ready, for the storm clouds are gathering, and it’s going to be a rough ride.
Politicians who cater to the fossil-fuel industry and promote climate-change denialism are doing a grave disservice to their constituents, to their fellow citizens, and even to their myopic corporate paymasters.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: agriculture corporate irresponsibility denialists media irresponsibility
by Warren
leave a comment
Meta
SiteMeter
Brighter Planet
Year 4, Month 8, Day 25: Eat. Eat. We’re Paying For You Like An Adult!
Under an overcast Saturday morning sky July 27, bright blue and red signs proclaiming “Climate Action: It’s Our Obligation” and “It’s Time to Cut Carbon” were taped to a table boasting equally eye-catching mounds of ripe tomatoes. A cluster of Boise Farmers Market shoppers paused to listen as local-food advocates discussed the intersection of local farming and climate change at a rally dubbed Producing Food, Reducing Carbon: An Event for People Who Grow and Eat Food.
“Probably nobody in our community deals with weather more than farmers; we are always checking the forecast,” said Meadowlark Farm owner Janie Burns. “Is it going to be good for planting? Is it going to rain? Is it going to snow? What’s the wind going to do? And so, when we think about the weather that’s just what’s happening today, sometimes we don’t pay attention much to those very small changes, those insidious changes that are happening in our climate.”
The farmer is the one who feeds us all. July 31:
Climatic transformations are happening everywhere around the planet, affecting local ecosystems and regional agriculture in profound and unpredictable ways. While farmers are always aware of weather conditions, it is a sad fact that many are still prone to rejecting the reality of the climate crisis, even as it unfolds around them.
This tendency to denial stems from several factors. First and foremost is the simple fact that nobody likes to contemplate bad news. And when it’s bad news set at some indefinite point in the future, it’s all too easy to put off responding to another day (a strategy employed by our government on climate issues since the likely consequences of the greenhouse effect were first discussed in the late 1950s).
But there is another element in the equation which is far less forgivable. Fossil-fuel corporations, eager to maintain their mind-bending profitability, have invested millions of dollars in “think tanks” and “institutes” which provide the print and broadcast media with handsome, telegenic, and authoritative-sounding “consultants,” “analysts,” and “research associates.” These people are amply paid to recite misinformation as a counter to the words of increasingly worried climate scientists. By confusing the public discussion, these corporate miscreants ensure their continued profitability, pitting their greed against the planet’s need.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes corporate irresponsibility idiots media Republican obstructionism
by Warren
leave a comment
Meta
SiteMeter
Brighter Planet
Year 4, Month 8, Day 23: Because It’s There
The Bloomington Pantagraph (IN) notes that one of their state’s own has spoken out:
BLOOMINGTON — McLean County farmers are fortunate to have high quality soils but their success – and ultimately the economic success of the broader community – relies on a favorable and stable climate.
That was the message McLean County Board member Carlo Robustelli offered as he joined several local and state leaders at the DoubleTree by Hilton Monday to urge the acceptance of the scientific consensus that human activity is causing climate change that, unmitigated, will have devastating effects.
“The consequences of climate change are real,” he said, noting the inability to transport farmers’ harvest last year due to low river levels caused by drought. “Taking action on climate change is good economic policy … It is also just the right thing to do for future generations.”
Aaaaand away we go. July 30:
While the grim realities of climate change are starting to hit home, the fact that there is still a vocal plurality of “denialists” speaks to the remarkable power of giant financial interests to influence public understanding. By sponsoring their own pseudo-scientists through “think tanks,” multinational fossil-fuel corporations have muddled the discussion of a rapidly metastasizing crisis while co-opting legislators and ensuring that meaningful policy initiatives are impossible to enact.
How many times have you seen “Senior Policy Analysts,” “Energy Research Consultants,” and “Energy Strategy Fellows” on your television? These generic talking heads are the creation of Big Oil and Big Coal, which have invested heavily in creating diversions and distractions in order to persuade a significant number of Americans that the international scientific community is a front for a liberal One-World conspiracy.
Yes, climate change is real. Unfortunately, so is the massively-funded denial industry, brought to you by the same people who fought tooth and nail to hide the link between cigarettes and lung cancer. Of course we can trust them. What could possibly go wrong?
Warren Senders
environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility island nations media irresponsibility rising seas
by Warren
leave a comment
Meta
SiteMeter
Brighter Planet
Year 4, Month 8, Day 22: Skerble Wop Derp, Herp Wing Derblewop!
The Manila Standard (Philippines) notes the 2012 World Risk Report:
Just recently, the Alliance Development Works, United Nations University and The Nature Conservancy released the 2012 World Risk Report, which ranked the all countries according to their vulnerability to risk. In this report, the Philippines was identified as the third highest disaster risk hotspot in the world, the result of combining a high exposure to natural hazards and climate change with a very vulnerable society. The Philippines comes after Vanuatu and Tonga, which were ranked first and second, respectively.
That the Philippines is ranked so high in the World Risk Index may actually seem both fitting and ironic. It is fitting because given the country’s high exposure to the risks brought about by climate change, the government responded quickly by putting in place policies aimed at addressing these risks. The Philippines is one of the first few countries that came out with definite climate change policies, and actually enacted laws on climate change. At the same time however, it may seem ironic because despite such an acknowledgement of these risks, there still seems to be a rather raw understanding of climate change in general, and what is needed to address it.
The Climate Change Act established the Climate Change Commission in 2009, and gave it the task of coordinating climate change-related actions and policies. As part of its mandate, the CCC produced the National Framework Strategy on Climate Change, and the National Climate Change Action Plan. The even more recent establishment of the People’s Survival Fund, meanwhile, provides an avenue for the management of climate financing at the national level.
Calling out the lying liars is always appropriate. July 30:
That there is still widespread ignorance of the causes and consequences of planetary climate change in this day and age is no longer something that can be attributed to chance. The effects of an intensifying greenhouse effect triggered by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are all around us. It is a sad irony that the Philippines and other island nations are most at risk from these phenomena, despite contributing essentially nothing to the problem.
For some decades there has been active collusion between multinational fossil-fuel corporations and the majority of the world’s print and broadcast news outlets. The American journalist A.J. Liebling’s quip, “Freedom of the press is only guaranteed to those who own one,” tells almost the whole story. Equipped with unimaginable sums of money and the respectful attention of the world’s leaders, these corporate miscreants have corrupted and diluted public discussion of an environmental crisis from the worst possible motivation: to protect their already grotesquely large profits. It’s their greed versus humanity’s need.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes corporate irresponsibility denialists drought media irresponsibility Republican obstructionism wildfires
by Warren
leave a comment
Meta
SiteMeter
Brighter Planet
Year 4, Month 8, Day 20: I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!!
The Reno News Review (NV) considers the wildfire situation:
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is trying to cope with drought and heat across the West.
And U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada said Western heat and fires are signs of climate change.
The heat and fires jeopardize the livelihood of ranchers who depend on grazing, and threaten urban areas like Reno that depend on snowpacks for their water supplies.
“Since last fall and winter, we have been working with grazers across the West in anticipation of tough conditions related to drought,” said BLM deputy director Neil Kornze in a prepared statement. “In southwestern Montana, for example, the BLM worked with permitted ranchers to graze no more than 70 percent of their allotted forage on BLM-managed lands. As drought conditions continue, wild horses, livestock, and wildlife that rely on rangeland forage and water will face extremely challenging conditions that may leave them in very poor condition. We are taking action to address these situations as quickly and as effectively as we can, but our options are increasingly limited by conditions on the land.”
In Nevada, the BLM has been trucking 5,000 gallons of water day, five days a week to four locations for wild horses. A veterinarian was expected to be in Lincoln County this week. BLM employees reported that horses were not eating or drinking, raising questions about their health.
“The West is burning,” Reid said in Nevada on July 17. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think we’ve ever had a fire in the Spring Mountains, Charleston range like we just had.”
“The West is being devastated by wildfires,” Reid said a day later in D.C. “Millions of acres are burning. Millions of acres have burned. … They’re occurring all over. Why? Because the climate has changed. The winters are shorter, the summers are hotter.”
La la la la la la la la la la la. July 28:
The sad fact is that as long as the majority of American news media are financially beholden to corporate interests allied with fossil-fuel producers, the grim and compelling evidence of climate change will never be presented on prime-time TV without a protective dose of false equivalence. Here’s how that works:
A petroleum company provides generous funding to a “think tank,” which hires a videogenic person with a degree in a tangentially-related field (statistics, engineering, meteorology), gives them grand-sounding but semantically meaningless title, and equips them with a full array of obfuscatory talking points (“the science isn’t settled,” “action on climate change will damage the economy,” etc.).
When a climatologist is scheduled to appear, TV programs call the think tank, which sends a “Senior Policy Analyst” to provide “the other side of the argument,” thereby creating the impression that there is a legitimate dispute. If this mechanism were in place elsewhere in our national discourse, we’d be hearing from flat-Earthers, lizard-people theorists, faked-moon-landing believers, and adherents of the medieval medical theory of “humors.”
Could this be related to the fact that responsible action on climate change will reduce oil-industry profits by a small but significant margin? I wonder.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: analogies capitalism corporate irresponsibility economics Keystone XL Tar Sands
by Warren
leave a comment
Meta
SiteMeter
Brighter Planet
Year 4, Month 8, Day 19: Boys, This Car’s Hotter’n a Two-Dollar Pistol.
The Winnipeg Free Press writes about the debacle at Cold Lake:
CALGARY – The Alberta Energy Regulator has ordered Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. to restrict the amount of steam it pumps into two oilsands projects following four spills earlier this year.
The move comes three weeks after the AER reported an emulsion of oilsands bitumen and water had been released into an unnamed water body on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range in eastern Alberta.
The watchdog says Canadian Natural (TSX:CNQ) must restrict steam injection, enhance monitoring and speed up clean up efforts at its Primrose and Wolf Lake projects, which use a method called high-pressure cyclic steam stimulation to extract the bitumen.
“Although there have been no risks to public safety, until we investigate these incidents, better understand the cause of these releases, and what steps CNRL will to take to prevent them, we are taking these measures as a precaution,” said AER CEO Jim Ellis.
The AER ordered the suspension of steaming operations within the eastern part of Primrose earlier this year following three bitumen emulsion releases.
In late June, Canadian Natural reported a fourth release, prompting the AER to order CNRL to take further measures, including suspending steaming within one kilometre of the leak and restrict steaming throughout the northern and southern parts of Primrose.
High pressure cyclic steam stimulation — sometimes described as a “huff and puff” method of extraction — involves injecting steam into a reservoir through a well, letting it soak for a while and then drawing the softened bitumen to the surface through the same well.
It differs from steam-assisted gravity drainage, or SAGD, which uses two wells — one to inject the steam, and one right below it to flow the bitumen to the surface. The reservoir is also fractured using cyclic steam, whereas in SAGD it is not.
More on the addiction analogy. July 27:
Industrial civilization grew up on a diet of coal and oil, the liquid fossils of Earthly life from an unimaginably distant past. Like the “crack babies” of urban legend, our consumer culture was born addicted to these carbon-based fuels, and like any other addicts, we employ extraordinary creativity and resourcefulness to maintain the supplies of our chosen drug.
The destruction wrought in Eastern Alberta is a vivid example of the kind of unintentional sociopathy that is all too characteristic of addicts. Just as the junkie who burgled your apartment didn’t want to violate your privacy, nobody wanted a beautiful lake and a vibrant ecosystem to be destroyed — but in both cases, the demands of the habit took precedence over any- and everything.
Cold lake is a small and beautiful ecosystem now endangered by a single disastrous engineering decision. And what of Earth – a medium-sized planet in an unimportant galaxy — and its denizens? We too are endangered by societal choices made in the thrall of a crippling addiction.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility ecosystems Keystone XL Tar Sands
by Warren
leave a comment
Meta
SiteMeter
Brighter Planet
Year 4, Month 8, Day 18: Sweet Sister Morphine
The Edmonton Journal talks about the Cold Lake catastrophe and the response from First Nations people:
EDMONTON – The chief and council of Cold Lake First Nations want a tour of traditional lands contaminated by four recent surface releases of bitumen emulsion from oil wells, says the First Nations industry liaison.
“We have many concerns because that’s our traditional territory,” said Christine Chalifoux, who works as liaison between Cold Lakes First Nations and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. “As always, our concern is how much damage is done to the land and the wildlife that is out there.”
After a spill reported June 24 affecting 40 hectares of land at Canadian Natural’s Primrose South location, as well as three other spills at its Primrose East location this spring, the Alberta Energy Regulator ordered the Calgary-based producer to stop a process using steam to melt bitumen, allowing it to pool into wells before turning off the steam and pumping out the bitumen.
Both projects are on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range about 240 kilometres east of Edmonton. That range, Chalifoux said, has been federally recognized as part of the First Nation’s traditional territory.
This is utterly tragic. July 26:
The apparently unstoppable bitumen leak that is rapidly destroying Cold Lake is a demonstration of the dangers inherent in allowing our planetary energy economy to become so heavily dependent on fossil fuels. There is a grim pathology evident in the behavior of all who participate in this system — everyone from corporate CEOs and their government enablers to ordinary consumers who need to drive to work.
Rationalizations, evasions, manipulations, and thoughtlessness are all depressingly common characteristics of addicts, and it is time to start calling our relationship with carbon-based fuels what it really is: an addiction. A junkie doesn’t care about the lives he destroys or the lies he tells, as long as he can get his next fix — and our petroleum-powered consumer society is likewise unconcerned about the destruction of regional ecosystems like that centered on a beautiful Alberta lake — we’ve gotta have that oil, whether it’s good for our long-term well-being or not (hint: it’s not).
The Earth itself — a small planet in an obscure corner of a minor galaxy — is increasingly vulnerable to the climatic consequences of our addiction. We all live on the shores of Cold Lake.
Warren Senders