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Climate News and Views
BP's Gulf Gusher Goes On -- Shorelines, birds and animals, fishers and shrimpers, native Americans still are heavily affected by the largest oil spill in US history.
Agencies and BP try to downplay the oil since the well was shut off, and progress can be measured -- but strong effects are clearly seen now, from the oil that is still on the beaches and the pelicans, to the health threats that haunt shrimpers and the small communities which depend on the Gulf
(August 20, 2010) The BP Gulf oil disaster is just not going away soon, even if government agencies and oil company press releases tend to make the public think it might. The recent announcements opening more fishing and shrimping grounds and Administration statements implying that only a quarter of the nearly 5 million barrels of crude remain at large tend to downplay the very obvious current physical and social effects. The active ripples of this disaster include effects on community jobs, income and health; and damaged ecosystem functions on which millions of lives depend. Some scientists question the NOAA estimate of remaining oil, and it is clear that the study of where the oil really went and what the future effects will be is just beginning.
Traveling across the region in mid August on the third major journey of our coverage of the BP oil gusher, Dr. Joan Rothlein and I saw less dark, heavy oil to be sure, and we witnessed the opening of some fishing and shrimping areas. But oil is still at large on beaches where clean up workers sometimes outnumber vacationers who normally would be thronging to beat the heat just before school starts. The astonishing sight of workers wielding tiny garden pool nets and small shovels to sift out the multi-millions of tar balls on Gulf Shores AL beach is warning the oil will be sticking to feet and in the ecosystem for a long time. Even on beaches like Grand Isle LA where a more industrial heavy-equipment approach to scouring the surface was undertaken, workers said there was lots of oil under the sand where they were told not to dig.
Pelicans, gulls and other birds are still being brought in to the rescue center at Hammond LA in large numbers -- more than a thousand more birds were found dead, or alive and in need of care, just since August 19 (per numbers on USFWS/NOAA's consolidated wildlife report). Joan was able to obtain, we think for the first time, the list of bird species brought in alive to rescue centers since April 20 (species have not been part of the wildlife report, for some reason). Terns and gulls were by far the most rescued, followed by the more photogenic brown pelicans. Northern gannets, herons and egrets, shorebirds, roseate spoonbills, loons and grebes also came in in large numbers. Other birds brought in alive include white pelican, ruddy duck, skimmers, bufflehead, scoter, coot, cormorant and oyster catcher. As of August 31, a total of 7438 birds have been found in the area, only 2041 were alive, and 1133 have been treated and released. When we visited the bird center with some fellow Oregonians, the staff was washing and caring for brown pelicans from rookeries near Hopedale and Lake Bourne. Avian rescue teams had stayed away from many rookeries in fear that early rescue attempts would disturb eggs and cause many chicks to jump from nests trying to escape -- but now fledglings are getting into oily trouble in large numbers.
Sea turtles in distress or oiled also have been found out in the open Gulf more frequently in recent weeks. As it has been for the entire spill, most of them are juvenile endangered Kemp's ridley turtle whose main habitat is the sargassum floating seaweed in the gusher area. More than 500 turtles have been found dead, according to USFWS and NOAA, and about an equal number were alive and under care. A few of the rescued ridleys have just been released into the eastern Gulf north of St. Petersburg and offshore of Gulfport. At the same time the program continues to excavate and relocate all of the approximately 700 sea turtle nests along the Gulf to keep the hatchlings from swimming into oil-polluted water. So far 278 nests have been dug up, almost all are of the threatened loggerhead species, and the eggs moved to an incubation center at Kennedy Space Center. More than 14,000 hatchlings have been released into the Atlantic -- rather than the Gulf into which they would naturally crawl, which clearly is still not favorable to the turtle. Loggerheads nest on both coasts of Florida, so a release into the Atlantic may not be a stretch.
But a small number of Gulf shore nests were laid by Kemp's ridley, and how those baby turtles will fare is unknown. None of the hatchlings is being tagged, as they are apparently too small to do so, so the fate of these involuntary refugees may never be known. With a natural survival rate to maturity of one in 1000, only about 70 turtles in the whole program will reach adulthood after more than 20 years, and probably fewer than half will be females (the relatively cooler temperature along the Gulf makes for more males; warmer temperatures in nesting beaches in Mexico turn the embryos more often female). Statistically, less than one will be a female Kemp's ridley. When and if those females come ashore in 2030 and after, how will anyone know they are among the BP Gulf oil spill diaspora?
The people of the Gulf coast are not about to leave, but the oil blowout made a rift in their lives and stressed the communities. Most people appear to be buoyant on relief that the well has been sealed and hopeful that tourism will return and seafood will regain its prominence in diet and income. However these feelings are anchored down by questions and doubts about the accuracy of government seafood testing, the whereabouts of the oil, BP's role in the future, public perception of what the spill did to the region, and the long-term damage caused by the petroleum industry.
Talking with people from Louisiana to Alabama (sometimes sharing the road with a group of concerned Portlanders), we learned that shrimpers have been hard hit, and the income of $1500 to $2000 a day for working for BP has been welcome, if not a windfall. For suppliers and packers, there has been no immediate source of income; P&M Seafood in Biloxi reportedly went from serving 80 boats last July to having just one boat come in this July. A few, from individual fishermen to heads of shrimp packing companies, expressed no doubt about the cleanliness of the water and wholesomeness of the seafood. Richard Gollott of Golden Gulf Coast Packing in Biloxi, and also a member of the State Commission on Marine Resources, said that shrimpers who express reservations about the water and seafood testing "don't know what damage they are doing" to the industry. "There's been no oil reported in Mississippi" for over a month, he said flatly (while tar balls were collected at Gulfport and light oil was washing up on Ship Island). He was getting his shrimp to process from boats netting near the Texas border, which flash-freeze the catch to get it back to Biloxi.
Many others were not so sure about what's in the water and how it is being tested. Shrimpers in D'Iberville MS who claimed to have collected oil from underwater in Mississippi Sound were having their samples tested. Part of the deeper effects of the oil spill is an apparent increase in tensions between some "white" and Vietnamese fishing communities along the coast, while community organizers attempt to increase solidarity on this disaster which affects everyone. In small towns in the central Louisiana Delta, most shrimpers apparently decided to stay with their BP Vessel of Opportunity contract and not net up for the first day of shrimping in close-in state waters, August 15 -- but a few boats did go out into the bayous. It is in between the brown and white shrimp season now, so catches we saw come in were small -- but clean appearing. Some families, like in the Indian community of Pointe Au Chien LA, which eats mainly seafood they catch, have not eaten the local fish since oil was seen close to the village in May. Women there doubted they would eat it now. And everyone questioned whether there would be a market and a demand to help keep prices up -- would consumers believe the catch was clean?
Below, reports and observations on the oil spill and climate change news from early August and before.
1. Crude streams from the well onto beaches
2. Oil on birds, marsh, beaches and peoples' lives
3. Oil on birds, marsh, beaches and people' lives 2
4. August: Oil remains while fishing resumes
5. August: Animals, birds, shrimping are affected
6. Indians Face Oil Spill
7. Indians Face Oil Spill 2
We spent two days at the American Indian village of Point Au Chien, population about 500, whose main street is a narrow bayou and whose ancestors predate everyone else in the Delta. Their way of life and culture spans from the tiny peapod-shaped pirogue to modern 93-foot shrimp boats. Far beyond the immediate threat of the oil, their greatest concern is the rapid loss of their land because of increased erosion and the chopping up of the marsh by petroleum canals and pipelines. We will report in depth on this vibrant community. More Gulf Oil Spill Photography and Reporting begins here.
As the gusher is stopped, Gulf of Mexico's woes include marsh loss and a near-record dead zone.
As the BP Macondo well is finally shut down -- we all hope -- the Gulf of Mexico can begin to recover from damage created by the 4.9 million barrels of oil (205,800,000 gallons) which poured into the waters over nearly three months. Scientific teams for the government Deepwater Horizon Response, which have steadily increased their calculations of the total flow of crude over the three month gusher, now estimate that 53,000 barrels of oil per day were leaking from BP's well immediately preceding its closure. According to the government press release, they think that at the beginning of the spill 62,000 barrels of oil per day were leaking from the well. "Not all of this oil and gas flowed into the ocean," says the release, because "containment activities conducted by BP ... captured approximately 800,000 barrels of oil prior to the capping of the well." The NY Times calculated that these estimates would make this spill far bigger than the 3.3 million barrels spilled by the Mexican rig Ixtoc I in 1979, previously believed to be the world's largest accidental release of oil.
Under the water, most of this oil still lurks, in plumes or layers mixed with the dispersant --- which was also pumped into the Gulf in record amounts. The result of this stew are still to be determined. Meanwhile, the "dead zones" -- areas of hypoxia, or low oxygen, in the northern Gulf of Mexico west of the Mississippi River delta -- continue to be a scourge on the ecosystem. These areas where few fish or other creatures can survive are caused when nitrogen and phosphorus delivered from farmland up the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers stimulate high rates of algal growth which uses up most of the oxygen. This year, according to Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and Louisiana State University, "they covered 20,000 square kilometers (7,722 square miles) of the bottom and extended far into Texas waters. The relative size is almost that of Massachusetts. The critical value that defines hypoxia is 2 ppm of oxygen, because trawlers cannot catch fish or shrimp on the bottom when oxygen falls lower. This summer's "dead zone" is one of the largest measured since the team of researchers from began routine mapping in 1985."
On the surface of the water where water and land mix in the rich marshland, as this week's photo hints, the Mississippi Delta is suffering an ongoing loss of land at a rate of about 40 square miles each year. Brought on by man made changes in the flow of the Mississippi, the recent series of hurricanes since Katrina, natural subsidence and wave action, and oil drilling and ship activities, the delta's productive marshland is eroding away at a record pace. Accordiing to the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration authority, "Louisiana has already lost coastal land area equal to the size of the state of Delaware. This loss is at an average rate of an acre every 38 minutes. If the current rate of loss is not slowed by the year 2040, an additional 800,000 acres of wetlands will disappear, and the Louisiana shoreline will advance inland as much as 33 miles in some areas." The straight line canals and constant ship traffic to serve the oil and gas industry are responsible for about a third of this land loss.
In light of the failure of the Senate to act on climate and energy, we update and reprint this report on July 26 from the Climate Photo of the Day from several weeks ago.
A National Mission? The Gulf, the President, our fossil fuel addiction and each of us.
The United States burns through about 370 million gallons of gasoline a day, and almost all of it is for our cars, SUVs and light trucks. If we wanted to make a national mission – as the President has said -- of using less petroleum for all the good reasons, from preventing more Gulf disasters to making us healthier to limiting global warming, we should start right now. We don't need to be drilling in our precious Gulf waters and allowing BP and the other corporations to poison it and our system of government. This is especially true now that the Senate has failed to take action on a comprehensive climate, energy and "green jobs" bill.
For example: We get about 1.7 million barrels of crude oil a day from all the Gulf oil rigs. According to figures from the Energy Department, most of it is used in the US and from it refineries can make about 33.5 million gallons of gasoline a day. At the average mileage our cars and smaller trucks get, about 20 mpg, this is enough gas to drive 670,000,000 miles every day. For the 254 million cars and light trucks on the road it comes down to about 2.64 miles of driving per day. Per vehicle. 2.6 miles less daily driving on average to eliminate the need for most offshore Gulf oil.
The President could start us thinking about how we can reduce our need for oil by asking us to drive that much less each day. To work together, as he musters his agencies, to rise up against Big Oil to eliminate the need for those 3800 dangerous oil rigs in the Gulf.
We can make one combined errand trip each day. Walk or bike to the store or the school. Make our commute shorter by driving just to the Park N Ride for the bus or lightrail. 2.6 miles a day is less than 20 miles a week. Think of it as an hour less driving each week, in traffic, even.
And if Americans decided to drive two hours less a week, just say about 40-60 miles less driving, on average, we'd save the equivalent of 67 million gallons of gasoline a day, which is about the amount of gasoline that can be made from the petroleum we import from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria and Iraq combined.
The President should say that we do make lots of other stuff from the rest of the crude that does not become gasoline -- but we can also easily do without much of the plastic, diesel fuel and lubricant with similar easy conservation, efficiencies and new technologies. The oil we actually need as opposed that we waste in overuse could come from many fewer, much safer wells.
He must remind us that 3.5 million gallons of gas (at 20 lb of CO2 per gallon) makes 670,000,000 pounds of CO2 -- more than 335,000 tons -- which we would not put into our atmosphere by driving just a bit less.
But this set of problems -- BP, oil and coal companies running our energy programs, the waters being flooded with crude and the air with pollutants of all kinds, our addiction to fossil fuels -- is obviously not really just the driving public's to solve. We got into this mess through a shotgun wedding of industry, politics and government, and it is time for some tough counseling and a divorce.
The President must demand of the auto makers, who we bailed out not long ago: get a million more hybrids on the road much faster than you are doing it now. With that we'd be saving at least another 600,000,000 gallons of gas or 1.65 million gallons a day. How about 10 million hybrids? How about all-electric vehicles with a combined government-industry program to make sure they all use renewable power, not from coal power plants? The President should ask transit authorities and all the businesses whose workers and customers mostly drive now to work together to make riding on trollies, trams, buses and bikes too affordable and convenient to pass up, and pledged more stimulus money to make sure it gets done.
The big picture is that we have to reduce greatly the amount of fossil fuels we use for transport and energy. These fuels are dirty and risky, they have been foisted on us beyond all real need by companies who'd rather spend money to get their way politically than to provide safe and healthy energy. The climate change they cause is getting worse -- Mr. Obama could bring to the nation's attention that March April, May and June were the warmest ever recorded around the planet. When the President spoke to us about the Gulf oil disaster he said the right concept words like "National Mission," but he didn't give us our homework – he did not make specific requests or proclaim actions except on the crucial but too-narrow concern of the BP oil disaster.
Our national response to the Gulf must be to broadly consider the effects and dangers from continued use of petroleum as essentially our only vehicle fuel, and to move very rapidly to reduce this and all fossil fuel use. We need increasing vehicle mileage, expanded transit options, the highest levels of building technology for energy savings, and comprehensive enforcement of regulations protecting our air, water and land. The auto, transport, energy, building and agriculture industries must proactively announce much more rapid changes toward these goals. Most funding must go to develop non-fossil fuel and energy/energy saving technologies. No more subsidies or special favors to oil, gas, coal – rather, create a national program (like the Manhattan Project – Moon Program – Interstate Highway System) focused on making safe, low-carbon, low-waste, sustainable, energy sources. This is a national security, health and American employment issue of the highest priority -- and it should trump all politics.
Right now, the President must begin making solid requests for action and move to separate his government from industry. We each also can start: Three Miles Less Driving each Day. Two Hours Less Driving each Week. And our very loud voices to politicians and leaders from village to companies to the Capitol.
Thanks to Joan Rothlein. For great information about the oil, and the government, I recommend Dr. Samantha Joye's research blog at http://gulfblog.uga.edu/ and Tim Dickinson's piece in Rolling Stone about BP, MMS and our government http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/111965
NEW news item
Heat wave not only in United States, but worldwide
NOAA is tracking world temperature this summer, and their current map shows many areas of the world far above the normal -- the larger the red dot, the farther above normal. Killing heat waves hit China and Eastern Europe.
"Warmer-than-average conditions dominated the globe during June 2010," says NOAA, "with the most prominent warmth in Mexico, northern Africa, and most of Europe, Asia, South America, and the contiguous U.S." The world land surface temperature June 2010 anomaly of 1.07°C (1.93°F above long term normal ) was the warmest on record, surpassing the previous June record set in 2005 by 0.12°C (0.22°F). The anomalous warm conditions that affected large portions of each inhabited continent also contributed to the warmest June worldwide land and ocean surface temperature since records began in 1880. The previous June record was set in 2005."
Previous news reports, June 2009 and before:
With the BP well still gushing, here is some news that gives context to our energy use, including an idea from an Oregon Senator that could have many more of us running about in all-electric cars.
In Washington, Senators increasingly appear to be shying away from passing any direct control on greenhouse gas emissions, like a cap and trade mechanism (a direct carbon tax, described by many observers as the most effective and workable plan, never was considered). Thus the plan and promise by the U.S. in Copenhagen, for a comprehensive national plan to reduce CO2 across the board toward a 2050 international timetable, appears to be off the table in Congress for now, possibly for the year. However, Presidential Science Advisor John Holdren told Living On Earth radio, "The President thinks its important and his advisers, including me, think it's important first of all to keep energy and climate change together in the legislation, as it goes through Congress, not to say, "Well we'll do energy first and we'll do climate change later," because these are intimately connected. ... The President remains committed to keeping them together, and he remains committed to getting the votes we will need to get that legislation through the Congress in a form that will be worth the President's signing."
The Senate did defeat a measure that would have taken away the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to control CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, so controls on vehicles and power plants are still in the works at EPA. For Senate legislation, reports are there is increasing focus on changes to energy use without any specific emissions rules, but most of the plans are described as weak on renewables and continuing to encourage oil and coal use. This week, Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon proposed an aggressive plan heavily focused on switching to electric vehicles, increased mileage on larger and off-road vehicles, and better transit options. This is one example of how much oil can be saved and thus not burned to release CO2 by transportation changes we know how to do now -- in this case all of our imported oil needs eliminated by 2030, which is 63 percent of the oil we burn each year.
Worldwide, it seems clear that the only change that had any effect of reducing fossil fuel and energy use was the Great Recession, a trade off which millions who are still out of work would not be much in favor of. According to numbers released by a department of BP (yes, that BP ... which has a statistical department many rely on for world energy statistics) for the first time since the 1980s world energy use decreased in 2009, by 1.1 percent. The U.S. and Europe showed reductions in energy production thanks to the recession, but China's energy use increased greatly. Coal provided nearly 30 percent of world energy, the greatest percentage since 1970 -- definitely a bad sign since coal is the worst global warming polluter. According to the report, global wind and solar generation capacity shot up by 31 percent and 47 percent respectively, but still are a tiny part of all energy sources. Wind power growth was led by China and the US, which accounted for a combined 62 percent of total growth.
With no strong and sustained U.S., Chinese or world controls on greenhouse gas emissions, the atmosphere continues to warm. The latest in ongoing scientific reports was issued by climatologist James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Center, saying that their analysis showed that 2010 so far was the warmest year they had measured. "The new record temperature in 2010," wrote Dr. Hansen, "is particularly meaningful because it occurs when the recent minimum of solar irradiance is having its maximum cooling effect." Hansen said, " It is likely that global temperature for calendar year 2010 will exceed the 2005 record, but that is not certain if a deep La Nina develops quickly." This could confirm the direction the year had been going according to NOAA analysis that both March and April were the warmest ever recorded. And in the Arctic, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, "air temperatures remained above average, and sea ice extent declined at a rapid pace. At the end of the month, extent fell near the level recorded in 2006, the lowest in the satellite record for the end of May."
While oil keeps gushing, April sets heat record and U.S. scientists warn of onrushing global warming.
While the United States was transfixed by the BP Gulf oil gusher which continued spreading and polluting into its second month, the results of the world's addiction to oil and coal were being demonstrated in detail. NOAA's climate data center reported that the combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for April was the warmest on record at 58.1°F (14.5°C). This was also the 34th consecutive April with global land and ocean temperatures above the 20th century average. Weather extremes in the U.S. from January to April were also high, with three times larger than average areas of extreme wetness and twice the usual area with warmer-than-normal low temperatures.
The U.S. National Academy of Science reported on May 19 that this and other strong evidence on climate change requires urgent coordinated action. America's Climate Choices, a study independent of the UN and IPCC requested by the U.S. Congress, confirmed that a "strong, credible body of evidence, based on multiple lines of research ... indicates that recent warming is largely caused by human activities, especially ... the burning of fossil fuels." The report called for national priority action to limit climate disruptions, including establishment of a central coordinating body to guide the nation's reaction and adaptation to rapid changes already underway. Just two weeks before, 255 scientists published a forceful letter in the journal Science, saying: "For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet."
Stormy weather ahead for the U.S. Senate climate and energy bill? -- The American Power Act is finally released. Nearly 11 months after the U.S. House passed comprehensive climate and energy legislation and in the greasy wake of the continuing Gulf oil spew, the Senate finally has its climate bill on the table. Senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman introduced their "American Power Act" on May 12, hoping the reaction against the BP oil leak will spur public opinion and passage in the Senate. The bill no longer has its only Republican sponsor, Lindsey Graham, and chances for passage are seen as mixed. The 987-page bill is, as Andy Revkin of the Dot.Earth blog wrote, "a classic piece of American legislative compromise...." It contains a staged cap and trade system, rebates a lot of the income back to low income citizens from the beginning, and promises $70 billion in cleaner energy investment (compared to $100 b in the House bill). For a comparison of this bill with the House-passed provisions AND campaign statements on climate action by Barack Obama, please see Joe Romm's blog, Climate Progress. And as a result of the Gulf oil disaster, Kerry and Lieberman added new limits on offshore oil drilling and more control by coastal states --- however incentives for domestic oil drilling as well as nuclear and "clean coal" development remain. For other views, check out Grist Magazine. News of the Gulf oil spew is the lead story in Climate News and Views.
BP Gulf Oil Gusher is Worst US Oil Spill by Far
The underwater gusher of crude from the BP rig wreckage in the Gulf is the greatest oil spill disaster the U.S. has ever suffered. The flow from the Deepwater Horizon well has been unstoppable for more than a month, but progress was being made at stemming the flow by May 27th. The Interior Department released its new estimate from two different teams of scientists that the well has been spewing between 504,000 and more than a million gallons a day -- which is up to 23,000 barrels a day. Earlier, NPR's Richard Harris first asked scientists to analyze a video of the oil billowing from the oceanfloor pipe and they calculated "an astonishing value for the rate of the oil spill: 70,000 barrels a day — much higher than the [first] official estimate of 5,000 barrels a day." The N Y TImes also reported on scientists whose estimates were up to 100,000 barrels The Valdez ship spill in Alaska in 1989 spilled 11,000,000 gallons, which is 261,000 barrels. Oil slick, "mousse" and tar balls have begun to reach the rich and irreplaceable marshland of the Mississippi Delta and beaches on Alabama's Dolphin Island. The most important fishery in the nation has been shut down. The growing slick has been moving west beyond the mouth of the Mississippi R., but the crude is expected to eventually foul beaches which create billions of dollars in tourism around the Gulf. Florida's beaches are estimated to be worth $19 billion a year to the state's economy.
Hearings in Washington and New Orleans have begun, with questions focused on how the rig blow-out occurred, what responsibility will be taken by BP and the two other companies involved, and how the drilling was given an ill-fated easy pass as "safe" by the U.S. government. It is unconceivable to many that BP, with $5.6 billion in profits just last quarter, could botch the drill pipe seal and also not have a detailed plan for an accident. Others point out that oil companies have leaked a lot of oil and have not had to show much safety or emergency expertise with Bush Administration policies, which largely remain in place. A report on Living on Earth said "...federal officials responsible for enforcing the law in public waters exempted the BP rig from a full environmental impact analysis." The Government Accounting Office found that in Alaska oil drilling oversight, the Interior Department did not have instructions about judging oil company plans against the National Environmental Policy Act, and that offshore drilling was considered not to have any significant environmental impact. The group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility found that President Obama apparently disregarded clear warnings from NOAA of the dangers to coastal areas when he announced plans to increase offshore oil exploration (see below) -- this plan is now in review. There is plenty of evidence bubbling to the surface that the safety equipment which was supposed to seal the well in case of accident was faulty in many ways. The New York Times has a continuing collection of many information sources, including an interactive map of the oil slick.
Our addiction to oil is not soon to be cured, but we need to understand the risks it carries not only because of global warming, but also to our coastal land and waters. These ecosystems are riches beyond calculation and are not replaceable at any cost. It is so much less expensive to immediately employ our ingenuity and industrial strength to use much less oil than we do now.
President Obama, Administration officials initiate energy and climate rules, from coal mining restrictions and mileage standards to off-shore drilling.
President Obama and Administration officials alternately angered and heartened the public with a series of energy/climate programs announced in early Spring 2010. Here are highlights and commentary:
Automobile gas mileage of new cars to increase to 35 mpg by 2016
Joint action announced on April 1 by the Transportation Department and the EPA "will significantly increase the fuel economy of all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States." The government press release said, "The rules could potentially save the average buyer of a 2016 model year car $3,000 over the life of the vehicle and, nationally, will conserve about 1.8 billion barrels of oil and reduce nearly a billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the lives of the vehicles covered." Right now the average for the U.S. vehicle fleet is only a bit over 17 mpg, according to a study in 2009, and with many cars staying on the road for more than 15 years, it will take some some to boost the average to the higher level needed to reduce greenhouse gases significantly. The White House said it was doing its part to shift to higher mileage cars by doubling the Federal hybrid vehicle fleet and by purchasing the first 100 plug-in electric vehicles to roll off American assembly lines.
Off-shore drilling areas opened from Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean
The opening of petroleum drilling areas in the Gulf of Mexico, off the SE Atlantic coast and north of Alaska was announced by President Obama on March 31(at the same time as the plan for higher gas mileage). According to the White House press release, "the Administration’s strategy calls for developing oil and gas resources in new areas, such as the Eastern Gulf of Mexico; increasing oil and gas exploration in frontier areas, such as parts of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans; and protecting ocean areas that are simply too special to drill, such as Alaska’s Bristol Bay. The strategy will guide the current 2007-2012 offshore oil and gas leasing program, as well as the new 2012-2017 program that this administration will propose. More specific details on this plan are available at www.doi.gov."
Reaction from environmentalists and some local officials was swift and strong, condemning the decision to open any off shore regions as short sighted in light of climate change and the value of the beaches and coastlines that would be threatened by any oil spills, according to a compilation of quotes on EnviroKnow. An analysis published in the NY Times on April 5 estimated that the reality of off shore drilling may mean only a million barrels a day from these locations, and only after 10-15 years of effort. But I do not agree with this article's premise that off shore drilling is a good idea and we should really be doing it off California. Public transportation already saves the U.S. the equivalent of 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline annually which requires about 200 million barrels of petroleum to make With the savings per year estimated from the vehicle mileage increase to 35 mpg, about 120 million barrels per year, and the many other efficiency and transportation improvements coming in the next decade such as urban light rail, high-speed intercity rail and electric vehicles, we are well on the way to reducing our need for new AND imported oil. The U.S. currently imports more than 12 million barrels of petroleum each day --- most of it from Canada, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela -- costing more than a billion dollars daily (at today's $87/barrel price). The fastest and most economical ways to cut oil use and its greenhouse pollution are ready now and should be pushed into greater use: higher vehicle mileage, driving less both by individual actions and by attractive public transportation, insulation and home efficiency programs to save heating oil and electricity, replacing coal and natural gas electric generation with wind and solar and efficient building technology.
Rules tightened on dumping into streams from mountaintop removal coal mining
Following up on the scientific studies about the harm from mountaintop removal mining (see below), the Environmental Protection Agency set what it termed "clear benchmarks for preventing significant and irreversible damage to Appalachian watersheds at risk from mining activity. Mountaintop removal is a form of surface coal mining in which explosives are used to access coal seams, generating large volumes of waste that bury adjacent streams. The resulting waste that then fills valleys and streams can significantly compromise water quality, often causing permanent damage to ecosystems and rendering streams unfit for swimming, fishing and drinking. It is estimated that almost 2,000 miles of Appalachian headwater streams have been buried by mountaintop coal mining."
EPA chief Lisa Jackson said, "Let me be clear. This is not about ending coal mining. This is about ending coal mining pollution. … We expect this guidance to change behaviors, to change actions, because if we keep doing what we have been doing, we’re going to see continued degradation of water quality. … Minimizing the number of valley fills is a very, very key factor. You’re talking about no or very few valley fills that are going to be able to meet standards like this. The intent here is to tell people what the science is telling us, which is it would be untrue to say that you can have numbers of valley fills ... and not expect to see irreversible damage to stream health. That’s just the truth. That’s the science of it."
For more on this important and overdue ruling, read Ken Ward Jr's blog from West Virginia.
EPA.
Scientists publish extensive scientific evidence of permanent environmental damage and risks to human health from mountaintop removal mining; call on U.S. EPA and Corps of Engineers to stop this kind of coal extraction
A group of the nation's leading environmental scientists are calling for an end to the kind of extreme strip coal mining called mountaintop removal mining. They urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S Army Corps of Engineers to halt all new mountaintop mining permits. In the January 8 edition of the journal Science, citing a comprehensive analysis of the latest scientific findings and new data, the 12 scientists argue that peer-reviewed research unequivocally documents irreversible environmental impacts from this form of mining which also exposes local residents to a higher risk of serious health problems.
This confirms what is immediately apparent to anyone seeing the wonton destruction of entire mountainsides to reach a single vein of coal, in the name of cheap energy. In mountaintop mining, upper elevation forests are cleared and stripped of topsoil, and explosives are used to break up rocks in order to access coal buried below. Much of this rock is pushed into adjacent valleys where it buries and obliterates streams and poisons entire watersheds, including domestic water supplies. Mountaintop mining with valley fills is widespread throughout eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, and southwestern Virginia.
"The scientific evidence of the severe environmental and human impacts from mountaintop mining is strong and irrefutable," said lead author Dr. Margaret Palmer of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in a press release. "Its impacts are pervasive and long lasting and there is no evidence that any mitigation practices successfully reverse the damage it causes."
Citation in Science (subscription required)
EPA Declares Greenhouse Gases Threaten Public Health and the Environment
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson announced that the EPA greenhouse gas (GHG) endangerment finding was that GHGs are a threat to public health and welfare. This decision was based on the great body of science showing effects on disease, air quality, coastal safety and storm intensity correlated with rising CO2 and methane levels. The finding, set in motion by a 2007 Supreme Court ruling, will allow the agency to regulate the gases under the Clean Air Act. In April this year, the EPA decided that carbon dioxide and five other GHGs could endanger human health and well-being. The decision was then made available for public comment, with the EPA receiving more than 300,000 comments over the given 60-day period. “EPA has finalized its endangerment finding on greenhouse gas pollution and is now authorized and obligated to make reasonable efforts to reduce greenhouse pollutants,” said Jackson. “This administration will not ignore science or the law any longer.” Jackson and President Obama have publicly stated that they would prefer Congressional action on climate change to EPA regulation through the Clean Air Act.
Information from EESI Climate Change News. For additional information
see: Environmental Protection Agency, BBC, Wall Street Journal, Reuters
Leading scientists warn of surging climate change effects on eve of Copenhagen climate talks.
A group of respected international climate scientists, including those who lead previous studies reported on this website, have issued an update on climate science as of the end of November 2009. The report paints a dire picture of increased greenhouse emissions, heightened effects around the world, and the threat that the world could reach a point of disastrous change if there is no immediate action to limit greenhouse gases.
The major observations include:
Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40% higher than those in 1990. Every year of delayed action increases the chances of exceeding the amount of greenhouse gases which the scientists predict will cause severe and long-term harm to large parts of the earth and its people.
Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-based warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of .34 degrees F (0.19ºC ) per decade. Even over the past ten years the trend continues to be one of warming.
Natural, short- term fluctuations are occurring as usual but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.
Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990. Summertime melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of estimates based on past climate.
Current sea-level rise underestimates: Satellites show global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) that is 80% above past predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in water flowing into the ocean from melting of glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets By 2100, global sea-level increase may well exceed 1 meter.
Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (such as continental ice sheets. Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues as it is now throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (“tipping points”) increase strongly with ongoing climate change.
The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be slowed to avoid these limits, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a "decarbonized" global society – with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases – need to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to 80-95 percent below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.
The report, "The Copenhagen Diagnosis," was written by Drs. Stephen Schneider, Georg Kaser, Michael Mann, Eric Rignot, Corinne LeQuere, Conrad Steffen -- contributors to World View of Global Warming and Earth Under Fire -- and 20 others. For more information and the entire report, please go here.
The limits and thresholds the scientists speak of is based on a level of 450 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 in the atmosphere, which they say could result in an additional 2 degrees F global temperature increase. There is already 387 ppm of CO2 in the air, and even during the current recession the concentration of the gas has been rising by nearly 2 ppm per year. However, a growing number of scientists are declaring now that the tolerable level of warming and change really is much lower than 450 ppm, and that in fact we already exceed the point of danger. These scientists advocate stopping and reversing the atmospheric concentration back to 350 ppm. This number has become the focus of an international citizens' movement to influence policy and legislation on climate change.
President Obama reverses years of avoidance by the United States, and will promise a limit on greenhouse gases at the international climate talks in Copenhagen
President Barack Obama will address the United Nations international climate change negotiations on 9 December, the first time a sitting president has appeared at this or similar meetings since President George H.W. Bush attended the Rio Conference in 1992. At that meeting, President Bush I signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which set into motion talks by the world's nations resulting in the Kyoto Protocol on limiting greenhouse gases. At this year's meeting, the nations will try to agree on much steeper reductions in greeenhouse gases in the face of mounting dangerous climate change.
According to reports, President Obama will state a US goal “in the range of” 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. This is consistent with a bill passed by the House of Representatives last summer. However the U. S. Senate has just begun to address a climate and energy law, and there is huge opposition from rural, manufacturing and coal states. Rancorous debate, possibly weakening amendments and other delays are expected before the Senate actually passes a law. Then the House and Senate will have to agree to final wording and greenhouse reduction levels. The final law may not be passed until well into 2010. Many scientists and climate activists say that the changes proposed in Congress are not strong or fast enough to head off severe climate changes.
With much of the world waiting for the U.S. --- and China --- to state hard goals and fully engage in the international climate talks, the White House apparently hopes that Obama's appearance and statement of a goal will encourage a successful Copenhagen outcome.
Global climate change impacts in the United States are spelled out with renewed authority in a federal government report.
The report's key information has been well reported here and in Earth Under Fire and other books, but bears repeating in its straightforward language and up-to-date numbers.
Human activities have led to large increases in heat-trapping gases over the past century. The global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to this human-induced increase. Global average temperature and sea level have increased, and precipitation patterns have changed.
Human “fingerprints” also have been identified in many other aspects of the climate system, including changes in ocean heat content, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, plant and animal health and location, and Arctic sea ice.
Temperatures could rise by 2-3 degrees F or more than 11 degrees will depend on how we manage our energy use and emissions. Lower emissions of heat-trapping gases will delay the appearance of climate change impacts and
lessen their magnitude.
Unless the rate of emissions is substantially reduced, impacts are expected to become increasingly severe for more people and places.
For more from this report, please go to the Temperate Zone page.
Obama's Climate Team Moves to Regulate Greenhouse Gases as Research Shows Global Warming Continues at High Rates
President Barack Obama's new Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson has moved to put CO2 and other greenhouse gases under regulation by the Clean Air Act. In one of the most anticipated early actions by the new Administration, the EPA issued a proposed finding on April 17 that these gases endanger human health and well-being. When made final, this will clear the way for regulation of vehicle exhaust, which is the source of about 30 percent of US carbon dioxide emissions.
This is one of the most visible of the climate actions springing from members of the President's new Cabinet, which includes leading scientists and informed diplomats. As they took their posts, working scientists announced in two international meetings that many factors in rapid global warming were getting worse or running at rates which only a few years ago were thought to be extreme.
Besides Jackson, who an was an experienced state environment leader before taking over at EPA, Obama appointed former EPA head Carol Browner to a new post of White House climate and energy chief; Nobel Prize winner Stephen Chu as Secretary of Energy; Harvard professor John Holdren, who has been outspoken on the dangers of climate disruption, as Presidential science advisor; and acclaimed ocean scientist Jane Lubchenco as head of NOAA.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton replaced George Bush's footdragging international climate negotiators with a team lead by Todd Stern. One of his first actions was to announce to international climate talks in Bonn that "the science is clear, and the threat is real. The facts on the ground are outstripping the worst case scenarios. The costs of inaction-or inadequate actions-are unacceptable." The Bonn talks are preliminary to crucial UN Climate Convention meetings in Copenhagen in December [[link: http://unfccc.int/2860.php]], at which nations have promised to agree to sharp limits on greenhouse gases, replacing the Kyoto Protocol. Many national issues and roadblocks remain, however, prime of which is the world recession which dominates other international meetings.
The EPA finding, although initially focused directly on vehicle emissions, will lead under the Clean Air Act to regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, source of nearly half of American CO2. Congress is also proposing control of emissions using a cap and trade process familiar to many from previous Clean Air Act procedures to limit sulphur pollution from coal burning plants. A comprehensive climate and energy bill, drafted by Rep. Henry Waxman of California and Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, will be debated in the House this spring. Reactions to the proposed legislation are being posted by many business and environmental groups and will surely intensify as the bill is amended and moves toward a vote later this year.
The urgency of climate action is even greater now because some recent observations are at or beyond the highest projections of previous reports. Scientific studies updating the IPCC assessment of 2007 show that more CO2 is being put into the air than ever before. Rates of change of global mean temperature, sea level rise, ice sheet changes in Greenland and the edges of Antarctica, and ocean chemical changes are running at the highest projections of the 2007 IPCC. In February 2009 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dr. Chris Field of the Carnegie Institute also reported that some major ways that the earth naturally absorbs CO2 were less efficient now, leaving more of the gas in the air. I heard him say that because of all this, we are "on a trajectory of climate... that has not been explored."
Not every indication of climate is changing this rapidly, but most scientists now predict a 5 degree F or more temperature increase and at least three feet of sea level rise before 2100 if things continue in this way. The changes documented in these website pages and my book occurred during a time of just over one degree of warming.
Every citizen of the world needs to be aware of rapid climate change:
1. Understand the problem, its causes and threats.
2. Let your leaders know the facts and that you expect them to act.
3. Do something today to reduce greenhouse gas output -- please Take Action
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