Mother Jones
I slept 7 hours last night! That’s the first time this has happened in months. And that was even in addition to an hour or two of napping that I did yesterday afternoon.
This is my Easter present to myself.
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“Flu-like symptoms” my ass.
The last couple of days have been a horror story. On Thursday afternoon, out of the blue, I started having intense lower back pain. Then it got worse. By late evening it was bad enough that I took some morphine, which had very little effect. It got worse through my sleepless night. More morphine at 2 am, then more again at 7 am on Friday morning. At that point, the pain was so excruciating that I wanted to head over to our local ER, but unfortunately Friday was the day we were scheduled to go to LA to have my Hickman port installed for the stem cell transplant. Marian, thank God, insisted on us doing the right thing: driving to LA regardless and getting help there. (On the bright side, Good Friday traffic was light.)
I was practically writhing on the floor for the hour after we got there. Eventually I was taken back to prep, and the doctor tried IV morphine. It had only a minor effect. Then he gave me several IV infusions of Dilaudid, and that did the trick. I was still in pain, but it was tolerable.
Unfortunately, our timing was bad. The Dilaudid was wearing off just as the surgery to install the port began, and they could give me only a limited additional amount until it was over. So the surgery was a horror story too, even though the placement of the port is basically pretty painless.
Long story short, all of this might have been the result of my Neupogen injections, which make my bones work overtime. But my doctors all agreed that although back pain is a common effect of Neupogen, pain of my level was very unusual. Alternatively, all of this could have been due to a pathological fracture in my lower back. A CAT scan ruled that out, thank goodness. So we still don’t know for sure what was going on. But after a very bad day and night, apparently the Dilaudid was the right painkiller, and I woke up in the hospital Saturday morning feeling surprisingly good. I would have given long odds against that Friday night.
So….very mysterious. And for me personally, a whole new definition of pain. Hopefully it won’t return.
Need a silver lining? As bad as it all was, it was apparently a sign that the Neupogen is working. Routine bloodwork shows that my white cell count is high and getting higher. Hooray! That’s what we’re hoping for.
On Monday we start putting the Hickman port to use. I will be up at City of Hope for 2-5 days while they extract stem cells and then process them and freeze them. If I’m producing lots of stem cells, they’ll finish up in a couple of days. If I’m producing a weak stream of stem cells, it may take as long as five days. Cross your fingers.
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There was a somewhat surprising announcement this week from a country with one of the world’s worst climate reputations: Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s office declared that his government is committed to signing on to the next major international climate accord, set to be hammered out in Paris later this year.
In a statement, the PM’s office said that “a strong and effective global agreement, that addresses carbon leakage and delivers environmental benefit, is in Australia’s national interest.”
I have no idea what “carbon leakage” is. Presumably it’s something similar to carbon dioxide emissions, which are the leading cause of global warming. Regardless, the announcement is a welcome sign from an administration that was recently ranked as the “worst industrial country in the world” on climate action.
The Paris summit is meant to elicit strong commitments to reduce carbon pollution from all of the world’s leading economies, so it’s a good thing Australia is willing to play ball. The country gets 74 percent of its power from coal (that’s nearly twice coal’s share of US energy generation). Australia has the second-largest carbon footprint per capita of the G20 nations (following Saudi Arabia), according to US government statistics.
But let’s not get too excited. Although Abbott hasn’t yet specified exactly what kind of climate promises he’ll bring to the table in Paris, there’s good reason to be skeptical. Here’s why: In the run-up to the talks, developed countries are keeping a close eye on each others’ domestic climate policies as a guage of how serious they each are about confronting the problem. It’s a process of collectively raising the bar: If major polluters like the United States show they mean business in the fight against climate change, other countries will be more inclined to follow suit. Of course, the reverse is also true—for example, the revelation that Japan is using climate-designated dollars to finance coal-fired power plants weakens the whole negotiating process. That’s one reason why President Barack Obama has been so proactive about initiating major climate policies from within the White House rather than waiting for the GOP-controlled Congress to step up.
So, on that metric, how are Australia’s climate policies shaping up? It looks like they’re going straight down the gurgler.
Almost a year ago, Australia made a very different kind of climate announcement: It became the world’s first country to repeal a price on carbon. Back in 2012, after several years of heated political debate, Australia’s parliament had voted to impose a fixed tax on carbon pollution for the country’s several hundred worst polluters. The basic idea—as with all carbon-pricing systems, from California to the European Union—is that putting a price on carbon emissions encourages power plants, factories, and other major sources to clean up. Most environmental economists agree that a carbon price would be the fastest way to dramatically slash emissions, and that hypothesis is supported by a number of case studies from around the world—British Columbia is a classic success story. (President Obama backed a national carbon price for the US—in the form of a cap-and-trade system—in 2009, but it was quashed in the Senate.)
In Australia, the carbon tax quickly became unpopular with most voters, who blamed it for high energy prices and the country’s sluggish recovery from the 2008 global recession. Abbott rose to power in part based on his pledge to get rid of the law. In July 2014 he succeeded in repealing it.
Now, new data from the Australian Department of the Environment reveal that whether or not you liked the carbon tax, it absolutely worked to slash carbon emissions. And in the first quarter without the tax, emissions jumped for the first time since prior to the global financial crisis.
The new data quantified greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector (which accounts for about a third of total emissions, the largest single share) in the quarter from July to September 2014. As the chart below shows, emissions in that same quarter dropped by about 7.5 percent after the carbon tax was imposed, and jumped 4.7 percent after it was repealed:
Tim McDonnell
It’s especially important to note that the jump came in the context of an overall decline in electricity consumption, as Australian climate economist Frank Jotzo explained to the Sydney Morning Herald:
Frank Jotzo, an associate professor at the Australian National University’s Crawford School, said electricity demand was falling in the economy, so any rise in emissions from the sector showed how supply was reverting to dirtier energy sources.
“You had a step down in the emission intensity in power stations from the carbon price—and now you have a step back up,” Professor Jotzo said.
…Jotzo estimated fossil fuel power plants with 4.4 gigawatts of capacity were been taken offline during the carbon tax years. About one third of that total, or 1.5 gigawatts, had since been switched back on.
In other words, we have here a unique case study of what happens when a country bails on climate action. The next question will what all this will mean for the negotiations in Paris.
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The World’s Worst Climate Villain Just Showed Us Exactly How to Stop Global Warming
Mother Jones
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Mount Pinatubo erupting in 1991 Bullit Marquez/AP
Back in the late 1990s, Ken Caldeira set out to disprove the “ludicrous” idea that we could reverse global warming by filling the sky with chemicals that would partially block the sun. A few years earlier, Mount Pinatubo had erupted in the Philippines, sending tiny sulfate particles—known as aerosols—into the stratosphere, where they reflected sunlight back into space and temporarily cooled the planet. Some scientists believed that an artificial version of this process could be used to cancel out the warming effect of greenhouse gases.
“Our original goal was to show that it was a crazy idea and wouldn’t work,” says Caldeira, who at the time was a climate scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. But when Caldeira and a colleague ran a model to test out this geoengineering scenario, they were shocked by what they found. “Much to our surprise, it worked really well,” he recalls. “Our results indicate that geoengineering schemes could markedly diminish regional and seasonal climate change from increased atmospheric CO2,” they wrote in a 2000 paper.
You might think that the volume of aerosols needed to increase the Earth’s reflectivity (known as albedo) enough to halt global climate change would be enormous. But speaking to Kishore Hari on this week’s Inquiring Minds podcast, Caldeira explains that “if you had just one firehose-worth of material constantly spraying into the stratosphere, that would be enough to offset all of the global warming anticipated for the rest of this century.”
So does Caldeira think it’s time to start blasting aerosols into the air? Nope. “It’s a funny situation that I feel like I’m in,” he says. “Most of our published results show that it would actually work quite well, but personally I think it would be a crazy thing to do.” He thinks there’s just too much risk.
Caldeira, now a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, recently contributed to a massive National Academy of Sciences report examining various geoengineering proposals. The report concluded that technologies to block solar radiation “should not be deployed at this time” and warned that “there is significant potential for unanticipated, unmanageable, and regrettable consequences in multiple human dimensions…including political, social, legal, economic, and ethical dimensions.” As my colleague Tim McDonnell explained back when the NAS study was released:
Albedo modification would use airplanes or rockets to deliver loads of sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, where they would bounce sunlight back into space. But if the technology is straightforward, the consequences are anything but.
The aerosols fall out of the air after a matter of years, so they would need to be continually replaced. And if we continued to burn fossil fuels, ever more aerosols would be needed to offset the warming from the additional CO2. University of California, San Diego, scientist Lynn Russell said that artificially blocking sunlight would have unknown consequences for photosynthesis by plants and phytoplankton, and that high concentrations of sulfate aerosols could produce acid rain. Moreover, if we one day suddenly ceased an albedo modification program, it could cause rapid global warming as the climate adjusts to all the built-up CO2. For these reasons, the report warns that it would be “irrational and irresponsible to implement sustained albedo modification without also pursuing emissions mitigation, carbon dioxide removal, or both.”
Still, the NAS report called for further research into albedo modification, just in case we one day reach a point where we seriously consider it.
Caldeira hopes it never comes to that. Like most other advocates of geoengineering research, he’d much rather stave off global warming by drastically cutting carbon emissions. In fact, he calls for a target of zero emissions. But he doesn’t have much faith in politicians or in legislative fixes like carbon taxes or cap and trade. “The only way it’s really going to happen,” he says, “is if there’s a change in the social norms.” Caldeira envisions a world in which it’s socially unacceptable for power companies to “use the sky as a waste dump.”
And if that doesn’t work out?
Caldeira points out that if we keep emitting huge amounts of CO2, temperatures are going to keep rising. That could lead to increased crop failures and possibly even “widespread famines with millions of people dying.” In that type of hypothetical crisis, he says, “there’s really only one way known to cool the planet on a politically relevant timescale”—aerosols. “So I think it’s worth understanding it now,” he adds. “At some point in the future it could make sense to do. I hope we don’t get to that state, but it’s possible.”
To hear the full interview with Ken Caldeira, stream below:
Inquiring Minds is a podcast hosted by neuroscientist and musician Indre Viskontas and Kishore Hari, the director of the Bay Area Science Festival. To catch future shows right when they are released, subscribe to Inquiring Minds via iTunes or RSS. You can follow the show on Twitter at @inquiringshow and like us on Facebook.
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We Could Stop Global Warming With This Fix—But It’s Probably a Terrible Idea
Mother Jones
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“The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.” —Lawyer Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird
In April 2005, nearly eight years after Kenneth Fults was sentenced to death for kidnapping and murdering his neighbor Cathy Bounds in Spalding County, Georgia, one of the trial jurors made a startling admission under oath: He’d voted for the death penalty, he said, because “that’s what that nigger deserved.”
It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, given the circumstances—a black man admitting to the murder of a white woman in the deep South—that some white jurors might secretly harbor racist views. The surprising part was that this juror, Thomas Buffington, came right out and said it. And what should have been the most surprising development of all (alas, it wasn’t) came this past August, when a federal appeals court, presented with ample evidence, refused to consider how racism might have affected Fults’ fate.
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Oh dear. Here’s some bad news for Ted Cruz on his very first day as an official presidential candidate:
For years, business lobbyists complained about what they derided as “job killer” laws that drive employers out of California. Rival state governors, notably former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, made highly publicized visits to the Golden State in hopes of poaching jobs.
But new numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tell a different story. Total jobs created in the 12 months ending Jan. 31 show California leading other states. California gained 498,000 new jobs, almost 30% more than the Lone Star State’s total of 392,900 for the same period.
Them’s the breaks. There’s no more “Texas Miracle” for either Cruz or Rick Perry. We’re in the middle of a California Miracle right now.
So how is Sodom on the Pacific pulling this off? Actually, that’s pretty easy to answer. California was hit hard by the housing bubble, while Texas wasn’t. So California’s economy took a big hit during the recession and the slow recovery, while Texas did pretty well—aided and abetted by a rise in oil prices.
Now everything has turned around. California is rebounding strongly from the housing crisis while Texas is suffering from the global collapse in oil prices. There is, frankly, nothing very miraculous about either story. It’s just the business cycle at work in a fairly normal and predictable way.
In fact, you may recall that there was never much of a Texas Miracle in the first place. It was mostly just PR bluster, as the chart on the right shows. The thick green line shows the unemployment rate in Texas compared to its neighboring states, and Texas is right smack in the middle—and it always has been. It’s better than half a dozen nearby states and worse than another half dozen. It is, sad to say, entirely average. That’s not something Texans are likely to take kindly to, but numbers don’t lie.
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Last year, I attended the annual conference of the California Dietetic Association, the state’s chapter of the country’s largest professional organization for nutritionists and dietitians. Its premier sponsor—and lunch caterer—was McDonald’s. That won’t be the case at this year’s conference in April: The organization just voted not to invite the fast-food chain back.
Today a member of the California Dietetics Association shared the following letter from conference leadership on the Facebook page of Dietitians for Professional Integrity:
We would like to direct your attention to what the California Dietetic Association (CDA) has done to address our own issues surrounding sponsorship. We heard your concerns regarding CDA Annual Conference sponsorship and we have listened. We voted and McDonalds was not invited as a sponsor in 2015. This decision has impacted our finances; however, we believe it was important to respond to our member feedback. In addition, an ad hoc committee approved by the CDA executive board, reevaluated the sponsorship guidelines. The new sponsorship policy will be posted soon on www.dietitian.org. Any questions regarding the new policy can be directed to Kathryn Sucher, CDA President-elect email address redacted
We look forward to seeing you at the CDA Annual Conference.
Your 2014-2015 CDA Executive Board
That’s not to say that the conference organizers have ditched corporate funders entirely. According to the schedule (PDF), Kellogg’s is sponsoring a panel called “The Evolution of Breakfast: Nutrition and Health Concerns in the Future,” while Soy Connection, the communications arm of the United Soybean Board, is hosting a session titled “Busting the Myths Surrounding Genetically Engineered Foods” (and sponsoring a “light breakfast”). A few other sessions sponsored by corporations and trade groups:
“Why We Eat What We Eat in America and What We Can Do About It” (California Beef Council)
“Probiotics and the Microbiome: Key to Health and Disease Prevention” (Dairy Council of California)
“New Research – Understanding Optimal Levels Of Protein And Carb To Prevent Obesity, Sarcopenia, Type 2 Diabetes, And Metabolic Syndrome” (Egg Nutrition Center)
“New evidence of Non-Nutritive Sweeteners: Help or Hindrance for Weight and Diabetes Management” (Johnson & Johnson McNeil, Inc, LLC)
“Plant-based Meals from Around the Globe” (Barilla Pasta)
Still, says Andy Bellatti, a dietitian and leader of the group Dietitians for Professional Integrity, ditching McDonald’s as a sponsor is a step in the right direction. “There’s still a long way to go,” he said. “But the McDonald’s sponsorship was just so egregious. I’m glad they came to their senses and got rid of it.”
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California Nutritionists Just Voted Not To Invite McDonald’s Back as a Sponsor
And it’s not going to be replaced any time soon. Irrigating rice fields in Richvale, Calif. Jae C. Hong/AP By now, the impacts of California’s unchecked groundwater pumping are well-known: the dropping water levels, dried-up wells and slowly sinking farmland in parts of the Central Valley. But another consequence gets less attention, one measured not by acre-feet or gallons-per-minute but the long march of time. As California farms and cities drill deeper for groundwater in an era of drought and climate change, they no longer are tapping reserves that percolated into the soil over recent centuries. They are pumping water that fell to Earth during a much wetter climatic regime—the ice age. Such water is not just old. It’s prehistoric. It is older than the earliest pyramids on the Nile, older than the world’s oldest tree, the bristlecone pine. It was swirling down rivers and streams 15,000 to 20,000 years ago when humans were crossing the Bering Strait from Asia. Read the rest at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. More: California Is Pumping Water That Fell to Earth 20,000 Years Ago
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California Is Pumping Water That Fell to Earth 20,000 Years Ago
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Fire and Ice
By Jonathan Mingle
ST. MARTIN’S PRESS
What kills more people than HIV, malaria, and TB combined? The unlikely answer is soot and smoke from cookstoves and hearths. In Fire and Ice, Jonathan Mingle explains how this dirty residue, a.k.a. black carbon, is one of the world’s most dangerous and least understood pollutants, leading to millions of premature deaths annually and contributing more to glacial melting than carbon dioxide does. His narrative humanizes the casualties—from drought-stricken California farmers to Himalayan families losing their water sources—and makes a compelling case for how we can clear our skies.
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We’ve noted here before the many ways in which solar power is blowing up in the United States: Adding tons of jobs, driving progressive policies, and attracting millions of dollars in investment from major corporations. It’s not slowing down anytime soon: New data from market analysis firm GTM Research finds that 2014 was solar’s biggest year ever, with 30 percent more photovoltaic installations installed than in 2013. Check it out:
GTM
Those numbers are even more impressive when you compare them to other types of energy sources. Even though solar still accounts for a small share of US electricity generation (less than 1 percent), last year it added nearly as many new megawatts to the grid as natural gas, which is quickly catching up on coal as the country’s primary energy source. (Coal, you can see, added almost nothing new in 2014.)
GTM
The report points to three chief reasons for the boom. First, costs are falling, not just for the panels themselves but for ancillary expenses like installation and financing, such that overall prices fell by 10 percent compared to 2013. Second, falling costs have allowed both large utility companies and small third-party solar installers to pursue new ways to bring solar to customers, including leasing panels and improved on-site energy storage. Third, federal incentives and regulations have been relatively stable in the last few years, while state incentives are generally improving, particularly in states like California and Nevada that have been leading the charge.
One more chart worth pointing out: Rooftop solar tends to get the most press because that’s where homeowners and solar companies get into tussles with big incumbent power companies and the state regulators that often side with them. And it’s true that a new home gets solar more often than a giant solar farm gets constructed. But on a sheer megawatt basis, utility-scale solar is still far and away the leading source, with a few notable projects coming online in 2014, like the Topaz Solar project in the California desert, the largest solar installation in the world.
GTM
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