If we can’t stop warming, can we cool the planet?

Posted on 10/18/2011 by Ken Paulman

To put it mildly, reducing carbon emissions to fend off the worst effects of climate change has been easier said than done. So, if things get desperate, will it be any easier to try to reverse that impact through geoengineering?

That’s the topic of a segment on this week’s EnergyNOW program:

It should come as no surprise that there’s a bit of a debate over this. The short version is that, on one hand, if we’ve passed the point where we can stabilize the climate through emission cuts alone, we need to consider drastic measures (like pumping particulates into the atmosphere to mimic the cooling effect of a volcano). On the other hand, we can’t rely on untested, last-ditch solutions, and if we do, who gets to control the thermostat? As one critic says, we’re already engaged, unintentionally, in a massive, uncontrolled experiment with the atmosphere. Why would we start another one on purpose?

These geoengineering ideas are not as distant and far-fetched as they seem. One technique, involving a high-altitude balloon and a 12-mile-long hose, is set to undergo testing in the UK this month.

Nor is this a new scientific debate. As Marc Gunther points out in an expansive piece on the subject in Fortune magazine, the first White House report recommending a serious look at geoengineering was back in 1965. And geoengineering technology is attracting a lot of capital — Bill Gates alone has pumped more than $4 million into research.

Technology to alter the earth’s climate is no longer the stuff of science fiction. It’s getting perilously close to reality. Will our policymakers be ready for it?

A conspiracy theorist responds

Posted on 08/23/2011 by Ken Paulman

Vaccines: Another vast government conspiracy perpetrated by so-called "scientists"?

Last week, I wrote about the lengths to which some conservative politicians and media outlets are genuflecting to spin the new truck efficiency rules in a way that fits their anti-government narrative. In the process, I found a post by Melody Scalley, writing for the American Thinker, that suggests the EPA is attempting to take over the trucking industry.

I’ll admit, I was a little concerned I was being unfair to Scalley by attributing such a mind-blowingly absurd idea to her. Maybe I had misunderstood something, or perhaps there was a bit of subtle irony that had gone over my head.

Fortunately, Scalley was kind enough to post a comment clarifying her view, which I’ve pasted below in its entirety:

Ken,

Did you miss the point that the ATA does not and cannot speak for the ‘trucking industry’?

Their members are not the individuals driving the trucks. The independent truckers will NOT be running out to buy new trucks; they are not even making enough money to support the trucks they have.

These regulations will result in fewer sales and smaller profits. Exactly what we need in a recession with no end in sight – more government regulation.

The EPA SmartWay program is based on the need to reduce ‘man-made global warming’, a complete farce made up by alarmists to control industry in the U.S.

Let us hope that some folks will understand what this administration is really trying to do before it is too late.

M.

(emphasis mine)

It’s easy to be dismissive of stuff like this. I mean, even BP acknowledges climate change is “a major global challenge – one that will require the efforts of governments, industry and individuals.” When you can get industry involved in the vast conspiracy to destroy itself, that’s one hell of a cabal.

But the issue here is that we — all of us — tend to view reality through an ideological lens. Climate change, for instance, is a problem that the free market can’t fix, so if you’re a person who believes that the free market fixes all problems, climate change simply can’t exist.

And because this denial is driven by a widely-accepted ideology, it’s treated as a legitimate political position in the broader media, rather than a wrongheaded rejection of established science. Plenty of people believe childhood vaccinations are part of a vast conspiracy, too, but can you imagine a presidential candidate declaring that “the science isn’t in” on the measles shot?

I mean, we’d laugh them right out of town!

Right?

Is the GOP’s climate litmus test weakening?

Posted on 08/19/2011 by Ken Paulman

If you were anywhere near the Twitterbox yesterday, you probably saw this bold announcement from Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman:

The tweet was bouncing around the web around the same time as a video of Texas Gov. Rick Perry explaining to a kid that he’s “not sure anybody actually knows completely and absolutely how old the earth is.”

But Perry doesn’t just question evolution and geology, he’s got issues with climate science as well. The candidate recently claimed that “there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects.” This statement and others earned Perry a whopping four out of four Pinocchios from the Washington Post’s Fact Checker blog.

While Perry is hardly alone in his rejection of climate science, Huntsman — who is anything but liberal — is deliberately distancing himself from the party’s anti-science wing. Huntsman’s chief strategist, John Weaver, recently told the Post that “We’re not going to win a national election if we become the anti-science party … the American people are looking for someone who lives in reality.”

Are they really? Consider this quote from a Perry supporter in Iowa:

“I’m looking for who’s the toughest and who stands with his values,” said Kyle Moeller, a 21-year-old college student who met Perry at the Walcott compound that bills itself as the world’s largest truck stop. “Right now, that looks like Rick Perry.”

“Living in reality” appears to be optional, at least in this case.

While a candidate’s views on science are certain to have a major impact on energy and climate policy, will it matter in the election? A recent article in Politico suggests not:

Republican campaign veterans shrug off the distinction on climate science as a third-tier issue that will be quickly overshadowed as the candidates engage on topics like the economy and how to balance spending cuts and entitlement programs.

“People will tell you it matters,” said Doug Holtz-Eakin, a former top economic adviser during John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid. “It doesn’t.”

So positions on science may not matter, but equivocating on those positions, as former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty did, just might. In a piece published today, former Minneapolis Star-Tribune editorial writer Jim Lenfestey says Pawlenty “embarrassed himself before the entire nation by turning his back on one of his most significant accomplishments.”

As governor, he saw the ominous clouds of climate change as the economic opportunity they represent, and was a strong supporter of renewable-energy standards that helped make Minnesota a leader in using our abundant nonpolluting energy resources.

But as candidate for the Republican nomination for president, he shamefully recanted that position to fit right-wing talking points that the science is uncertain, while he knows the opposite is true — the science has only grown more certain since he first became governor.

So will science win the day? Or conviction about science, right or wrong? Watching Huntsman’s poll numbers in the coming months will give us a clue.

Colbert out-denies Limbaugh

Posted on 08/10/2011 by Ken Paulman

Stephen Colbert explains how the liberal media are trying to indoctrinate kids by sneaking global warming propaganda into cartoons:

The Colbert Report

Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Heatsteria

www.colbertnation.com

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Baby, it’s hot outside

Posted on 07/20/2011 by Ken Paulman

Yes, your grandparents had it tougher: Residents of St. Paul sleep outside during a heat wave in 1936. (Photo via Minnesota Historical Society)

After enduring a brutal winter, upper Midwesterners don’t cotton much to complaining about the heat. But with temperatures in the 90s compounded with record humidity, one can be forgiven for grousing a bit.

Paul Douglas of the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that yesterday, Moorhead, Minnesota was the hottest spot on planet Earth, with a heat index of 134 degrees.

But it’s not just weather records that are falling. The unbearable conditions have air conditioners running non-stop, leading to unprecedented electricity demand. Some headlines:

South Dakota: NorthWestern Energy surpasses demand record (Associated Press)
Wisconsin: MGE customers set another power usage record (Wisconsin State Journal)
Iowa: MidAmerican, Alliant report record electric demand (Cedar Rapids Gazette)
Minnesota: Xcel set new power demand record Monday (Star Tribune)

While there have been power outages throughout the region, most of the utilities seem confident they can meet demand, which is expected to peak yet again today. But as a changing climate makes these “heat storms” (Douglas’ term) more likely, we’ll need to find ways to continue to meet (or reduce) this increasing demand.

Wouldn’t want to get left out in the heat.

What climate and the debt ceiling have in common

Posted on 07/19/2011 by Ken Paulman

Nobody's wrong if everybody's right.

This past weekend, WNYC’s On The Media looked at the media narratives surrounding the debt ceiling showdown.

What does that have to do with climate change?

Take a look at this:

As U.S. News and World Report’s chief business correspondent Rick Newman wrote recently, “Outside the Beltway there is some consensus. Many economists, corporate CEOs and those on Wall Street can agree that the debt ceiling situation needs to be resolved, and quick, with a combination of spending cuts and increased taxation.”

The economic consensus, though, is buried in the drama of the political showdown. The question is if there is so little to debate, why obsess about the debate.

Rick Newman says that all the coverage the public needs is there, if the audience is willing to sift through all the irrelevancies to find it. But the media are once again trapped in the losing proposition of giving equal time and equal respect to all parties.

Sound familiar?

I’m not the only one making that connection. Host Bob Garfield continues:

What if, and this is just a suppose, but what if this is a case, as we have seen in other issues – let’s say climate change, for example, where one side is right, the other side is just flatly wrong, but because the situation is so politicized the press can’t just categorically say, you know, this side is right? Let’s just say what the nation requires right now is a combination of deep spending cuts and modest tax gains. What if reality has a liberal bias?

In March, Raymond Pingree of Ohio State University released a study showing that politicized coverage of health care not only left readers less informed, but also more apathetic and disengaged in the policy process.

Which, then as now, was also clearly evident as a primary source of public ambivalence to climate change. And, as per yesterday’s post, unquestioning repetition of political talking points about light bulb efficiency standards has also led to a great deal of confusion and agitation.

It’s important to make sure news stories include multiple perspectives. But not at the expense of accuracy.

Photo by John Lawford via Creative Commons

U.S., Europe worlds apart on climate science coverage

Posted on 07/05/2011 by Tom Vandyck

When it comes to reporting on climate change, European media are from hothouse Venus, and their American counterparts are from considerably more frigid Mars. The divide between them may be having a profound impact on climate and energy policy in either part of the world.

European journalists accuse their American counterparts of maintaining a false balance in their reporting, pretending climate science is still in doubt, and offering politicians cover for inaction.

But while that may have been true just a few years ago, it is changing now, say American editors.

For Peter Vandermeersch, editor-in chief at the traditionally conservative daily NRC Handelsblad in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, there is no debate about climate change.

“Absolutely, that’s a given”, he said. “The conviction has grown that climate change does exist, and that humans play a major role in how it evolves.”

“There’s almost no discussion about it”, agreed Wouter Verschelden, editor-in-chief at the progressive daily De Morgen in Brussels, Belgium. “The nonbelievers have been marginalized, and they aren’t taken seriously anymore. We don’t have to convince our readers anymore of the fact that there is climate change, and that it’s caused by humans.”

‘He said, she said’ journalism

According to Vandermeersch and Verschelden, who are both alumni of Columbia University’s vaunted Journalism School in New York, American news media still make the mistake of giving climate skeptics a disproportionate voice, and perpetuating a debate that has long been settled among scientists.

“In a sense, you’re lying to your readers,” says Verschelden. “You’re creating a ‘he said, she said’ story, and looking for an argument that just doesn’t always exist.”

“Journalism in 2011, in Europe, but also in America, ought to be saying, ‘These are the facts, they all point in the same direction, and therefore it’s our job to say that’s how it is,’” said Vandermeersch. “Doing that in a thorough, well-founded, and well-argued manner, is better journalism than just giving equal time to both sides.”

Cristi Kempf, the national foreign editor at the Chicago Tribune, disputes that characterization.

“We don’t have set policy on climate change,” she said. “You have to remember that most European newspapers are papers with point of view, maybe liberal or right wing. Most U.S. papers still do try to retain that objectivity. We will print stories that bring both sides of the view.”

“We will print stories about climate change presenting it as fact, and we will print stories about people who say climate change doesn’t exist. It’s very obvious that a lot of people, including members of the U.S. Congress, believe it’s not true.”

Still, the Europeans’ position has merit, says Max Boykoff, a professor at the University of Colorado’s Center for Science and Technology Policy Research in Boulder, who has done extensive research on the issue.

“Within the top U.S. daily print media there has been this reliance on the journalistic norm of balanced reporting that worked to the detriment of accurately reporting whether or not humans contribute to climate change”, he said. “I found over in the U.K. press, that hasn’t been as much of an influence – in fact, that they’ve been reporting it quite accurately.”

“I think the objectivity standard that U.S. newspapers apply has probably outlived its usefulness on this particular issue”, said Mark Neuzil, a professor of environmental communication at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. “At some point you’re not being a decent and good journalist when you’re giving equal weight when 97 percent say one thing, and 3 percent say the other, unless you point that out really clearly.”

Tea Party

“You can’t say there’s a false sense of balance”, said Kempf. “American papers still have that wall between an editorial page and a news page. It’s naïve to believe that a journalist doesn’t have a point of view, but you try to not insult your readers. You’ve got readers who are, of course, members of the Tea Party, or who believe climate change isn’t real. But we also just ran a story about scientists who are getting tons of funding to prove climate change isn’t real.”

According to Boykoff, a number of factors contribute to the difference. Firewalls between opinion and news are more impenetrable in U.S. newsrooms. State-owned media such as the BBC in the U.K., and similar broadcasters in other European countries, have agenda-setting clout that American media lack. Most major U.S. media outlets are corporate owned, leading to a different newsroom culture.

Many American papers are owned by national chains, such as Gannett, the New York Times Company, and the Chicago-based Tribune Company. Few do their own climate reporting, relying instead on syndicated content.

“We use wire service coverage, we don’t have anybody covering climate change”, said Jenny Green, managing editor at the Gannett-owned Indianapolis Star, which has a daily circulation of 180,000 and a newsroom staff of almost 90.

By comparison, the Belgian paper De Morgen, with its newsroom staff of 50 and circulation of 52,000, does employ a full-time climate writer.

“I feel like a lot of North American journalists that I’ve talked to over the years feel constrained by some of these things”, said Boykoff. “These are smart folks that oftentimes are swimming upstream against the current. The journalists themselves are just as savvy as the ones over in Europe, but the way that they can do their reporting over there is different.”

Polarized and paralyzed

While in Europe the media consensus about climate change coincides with political plans to reshape climate and energy policy dramatically, coverage in the U.S. reflects a much more polarized – and paralyzed – political landscape.

The EU plans to reduce its carbon emissions, lower its energy consumption and raise its renewable energy production all by 20 per cent by 2020. Britain recently launched a massive push to insulate private homes and businesses, and Germany has decided to double its renewable energy generating capacity by 2022.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., climate policy remains mired in partisan squabbles. A federal cap-and-trade plan is a non-starter in ideologically polarized Washington D.C., where any meaningful action on the issue during President Obama’s first term in office seems unlikely.

To what extent are these policy differences a consequence of media coverage?

“The media play a part in shaping public perception, and policy-maker perception and actions on climate change”, said Boykoff. “It’s not insignificant, but to really understand how significant it is – it’s difficult. It hasn’t been done yet.”

“As a consequence of the way papers in Western Europe assess that climate change is real, the public debate in Europe, in my opinion, goes more in the right direction”, said Vandermeersch, who also pointed out that ideologically slanted newsrooms in his part of the world are increasingly a thing of the past. “I think we have a better educated public in Europe than in the U.S., where fake arguments are still on the table, because of that kind of journalism.”

Tipping point

But things are changing stateside, said Neuzil. “The journalists that I know in the mainstream media have more actively reflected the scientific consensus in recent years. They’re not as worried about finding a denier quote every time they do a story.”

The tipping point came in 2005, said Boykoff, with hurricane Katrina, and the release of former Vice-President Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

“There were a number of important events around that time that changed the landscape for that kind of reporting. But meanwhile in television news, it continued. That could be partly just because television news isn’t able to go into the specifics and the contours of complex issues like print journalism can. It became less about U.S. anomalies versus the rest of the world and more about what medium we’re talking about.”

The same is true of the Chicago Tribune, said Kempf. “When people say they are disbelievers of climate change, you have to point out that most of this has been debunked. I would say most of our stories – 75 percent – are overwhelmingly showing that climate change exists. Ice is melting, animals are dying – that kind of thing. And then every once in a while, you get something else.”

Tom Vandyck is an international freelance writer based in St. Paul. In addition to being syndicated by the International Features Agency in Amsterdam, his work has appeared in the Boston Globe and the Christian Science Monitor.

Photo by haonavy via Creative Commons

This work by Midwest Energy News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Dropping sunspots! Lunar eclipses! Oh, my!

Posted on 06/16/2011 by Molly Priesmeyer

Today’s big news is all about the great big sky. Not that it’s falling, but for some alarmists and reactionaries, it might as well be.

That’s because the big science news on Wednesday was that there’s a serious halt to sunspot activity, which might potentially impact the world’s climate and climate-change initiatives, including renewable energy projects. On the flip side of that–or more like 93 million miles away (sort of)–there’s the total eclipse of the moon, a rarity that few will see, unless they count Google’s cool animation as viewing the eclipse.

Of course, the lunar eclipse isn’t Chicken Little-worthy, even though it will cause millions of people to crane their necks in search of the reddening sky. But what about those dulling sun spots? And what does the alleged slowdown mean for renewable energy, particularly solar?

The New York Times’ Dot Earth blog did a round-up of quotes from scientists who say the sun is about to go into a dormant period.

However, Douglas Biesecker, a scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, responded to the author’s questions with: “I consider the strength of evidence to be anemic and the reasoning to be highly suspect.” The response was worthy of its own Dot Earth post, and Biesecker sent along a detailed PowerPoint presentation outlining “Why there is no evidence of a maunder minimum.” It’s worth watching, if you’re a science geek.

What actually happens remains to be seen. Only the fireball in the sky knows the answers to these big questions. Or maybe it doesn’t. (That would assume that the sun has a giant brain.)

But one thing’s for certain: Those sleepy sunspots won’t slow down the revved-up solar industry or the Department of Energy’s initiatives.

In fact, just yesterday, the same day of the solar scare, the DOE announced $2 million in conditional loans for concentrated solar projects in California; Google announced a $280 million solar fund to help homeowners finance rooftop installations; and a new report revealed that utility companies, which once snubbed the sun and its power, are now driving solar initiatives across the country.

But perhaps the most telling info released as of yet about what will happen if there is indeed another Maunder Minimum is from Wired.com:

The answer can be seen in the image at the top of this post, which estimates the temperature difference between a solar minimum future under “middle-of-the-road” climate scenarios and the Maunder Minimum. In a nutshell: It’s going to be much, much hotter in the future, solar minimum or not.

In other words, all those new solar panels will have plenty of sun and heat to draw from, even if those sun spots stop spitting fire.

Lookin’ for causality in all the wrong places

Posted on 05/26/2011 by Ken Paulman

Watch out, Climate Change. Tamperin' with mailboxes is a federal o-ffense.

The basic fundamentals of climate change and weather really aren’t all that difficult to grasp. CO2 traps heat, more heat means the atmosphere holds more moisture, and more heat and moisture mean stronger, more intense storms.

So the fact that we’re seeing stronger and more intense storms ought not come as a tremendous surprise. Scientists have been warning us about this for years.

So why is this impact of climate change treated as such a great controversy?

Part of the problem – I think – is that the question is too often framed as whether climate change “caused” a particular weather event. A classic example of this comes from, of all places, the MIT Technology Review:

When you pose the question this way, the answer is always going to be “no one knows.” That creates a false perception that there is more uncertainty among scientists about climate’s role in weather than there actually may be. Scientists are constantly quoted in the media saying “there is no definitive connection between climate change and [insert whatever's going wall-to-wall on CNN right now].”

Climate change loads the dice, but it doesn’t roll them.

The climate in Minnesota means it’s more likely to snow here than in, say, Seattle, which is actually farther north. Does that mean Minnesota’s climate “causes” snowstorms? The question seems ridiculous when you put it that way.

When talking about tornadoes, it’s even more problematic because scientists don’t fully understand how tornadoes form as in the first place. Seemingly identical conditions can produce a tornado in one instance but not another. So to ask whether a particular tornado was “caused” because the temperature in the atmosphere is slightly higher than it was a few decades ago is even sillier.

That doesn’t mean we should avoid the topic altogether. Consider Joseph Romm’s position:

1. When discussing extreme weather and climate, tornadoes should not be conflated with the other extreme weather events for which the connection is considerably more straightforward and better documented, including deluges, droughts, and heat waves.

2. Just because the tornado-warming link is more tenuous doesn’t mean that the subject of global warming should be avoided entirely when talking about tornadoes.

So, if you’re a journalist, asking a scientist whether climate change “caused” something is simply a bad question. A better question might be, “how likely would this weather event have been if not for global warming?” Or, “as the atmosphere warms, will this sort of thing become more frequent?”

Those types of questions at least reflect an elementary understanding of climate and weather (which is really all I have, as I am not a scientist), and are likely to generate a more lucid response.

Photo by autowitch via Creative Commons

Coal, God and cats in the Minnesota House

Posted on 05/12/2011 by Ken Paulman

Where coal comes from, evidently.

As you’ve probably heard by now, the Minnesota House voted yesterday to approve a bill that would weaken the state’s renewable energy law.

The bill, SF 86, which as amended would allow for some coal power to be imported from out of state, ultimately passed. But only after nearly three hours of debate that, to no one’s surprise, wandered down the ol’ rabbit hole a few times.

Democrats introduced a series of amendments designed to delay the changes from taking effect. One of the more creative, from Rep. Kate Knuth, would have required waiting until the Department of Defense rescinded its findings recommending action to prevent climate change. Another, from Rep. John Persell, would have tied the bill to first achieving goals for lowering mercury pollution in lakes. And a third, from Rep. Thomas Huntley, would have required the state Public Utilities Commission to assess the health impact of new power plants.

All of these amendments failed, but the ensuing discussion revealed some interesting political overlaps between energy and other social issues.

One recurring theme was downplaying the health impacts of burning coal. While discussing Huntley’s amendment, Rep. Peggy Scott said that while coal emissions may cause asthma attacks, so can cat dander, therefore if the PUC is going to study coal plants, it should also study cats.

The mercury conversation (which, at times, danced tantalizingly close to becoming a light-bulb debate) focused on prenatal health. Persell tried to draw out abortion rights opponents by insisting that a vote for more coal power was also a vote against the health of fetuses, which visibly angered some Republicans.

Rep. Mike Beard, who has been leading the charge to repeal the state’s coal restrictions, acknowledged that mercury pollution can damage fetuses, but said the electricity produced by those coal plants has led to better prenatal health care, so it all sort of evens out.

But perhaps one of the more awkward moments came when Democratic Rep. Andrew Falk asked Beard where coal comes from.

Beard, an evangelical Christian, hedged. “There are several theories to where coal comes from,” he replied, and suggested Falk look up the answer on Wikipedia. Falk persisted with the question, and Beard, recognizing that he was being baited for a statement on creationism, refused to answer. “I’m not going to go there with you,” he said.

Other Republicans were more straightforward with their interpretation of coal’s origins. Rep. Sondra Erickson called coal “a great resource that our Creator has given us,” and Rep. Joe McDonald said “we have 300 years of coal … God put it here for a reason.”

Beard received national attention in February for his comment to MinnPost’s Don Shelby that “we’re not going to run out of anything” because “God is not capricious.”

While energy and climate are complex subjects, they’re grounded in science, and to the scientific-minded, the level of controversy over basic realities can seem absurd.

At one point, Republican Rep. Mary Franson decried the “climate change religion,” which she said is “all about control and fear.”

Is it possible the reason there’s so much disagreement is because rather than debating energy, we’re actually debating religion instead?